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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


LIFE  AND  DEATH 

OF 

HARRIETT  FREAN 


BY 
MAY  SINCLAIR 


THE  BELFRY 

MARY  OLIVIER 

THE  ROMANTIC 

THE  THREE  SISTERS 

THE  TREE  OF  HEAVEN 

A  DEFENCE  OF  IDEALISM 

MR.  WADDINGTON  OF  WYCK 

THE  RETURN  OF  THE  PRODIGAL 

JOURNAL  OF  IMPRESSIONS  IN  BELGIUM 


LIFE   AND   DEATH   OF 

HARRIETT  FREAN 


BY 
MAY  SINCLAIR 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1922 

All  rights  reserved 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


COPYRIGHT,  1922, 
BY  MAY  SINCLAIR. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published,  January,  1922. 


Press  of 

J.  J.  Little  &  Ives  Company 
New  York,  U.  S.  A. 


College 
Library 

PP. 

4037 


1.158091 


LIFE  AND  DEATH  OF 

HARRIETT  FREAN 


"Pussycat,  Pussycat,  where  have  you  been?" 
"I've  been  to  London,  to  see  the  Queen." 

"Pussycat,  Pussycat,  what  did  you  there?" 
"I  caught  a  little  mouse  under  the  chair." 

HER  mother  said  it  three  times.  And  each  time 
the  Baby  Harriett  laughed.  The  sound  of  her  laugh 
was  so  funny  that  she  laughed  again  at  that;  she 
kept  on  laughing,  with  shriller  and  shriller  squeals. 

"I  wonder  why  she  thinks  it's  funny,"  her  mother 
said. 

Her  father  considered  it.  "I  don't  know.  The 
cat  perhaps.  The  cat  and  the  Queen.  But  no ;  that 
isn't  funny." 

"She  sees  something  in  it  we  don't  see,  bless  her," 
said  her  mother. 

Each  kissed  her  in  turn,  and  the  Baby  Harriett 
stopped  laughing  suddenly. 


6  Harriett  Frean 

"Mamma,  did  Pussycat  see  the  Queen  ?" 
"No,"  said  Mamma.     "Just  when  the  Queen  was 
passing  the  little  mouse  came  out  of  its  hole  and  ran 
under  the  chair.    That's  what  Pussycat  saw." 

Every  evening  before  bedtime  she  said  the  same 
rhyme,  and  Harriett  asked  the  same  question. 

When  Nurse  had  gone  she  would  lie  still  in  her 
cot,  waiting.  The  door  would  open,  the  big  pointed 
shadow  would  move  over  the  ceiling,  the  lattice 
shadow  of  the  fireguard  would  fade  and  go  away, 
and  Mamma  would  come  in  carrying  the  lighted 
candle.  Her  face  shone  white  between  her  long, 
hanging  curls.  She  would  stoop  over  the  cot  and 
lift  Harriett  up,  and  her  face  would  be  hidden  in 
curls.  That  was  the  kiss-me-to-sleep  kiss.  And 
when  she  had  gone  Harriett  lay  still  again,  waiting. 
Presently  Papa  would  come  in,  large  and  dark  in 
the  firelight.  He  stooped  and  she  leapt  up  into 
his  arms.  That  was  the  kiss-me-awake  kiss;  it  was 
their  secret. 

Then  they  played.  Papa  was  the  Pussycat  and 
she  was  the  little  mouse  in  her  hole  under  the  bed- 


Harriett  Frean  7 

clothes.     They  played  till  Papa  said,  "No  more!" 

and  tucked  the  blankets  tight  in. 

"Now  you're  kissing  like  Mamma " 

Hours  afterwards  they  would  come  again  together 

and  stoop  over  the  cot  and  she  wouldn't  see  them ; 

they  would  kiss  her  with  soft,  light  kisses,  and  she 

wouldn't  know. 

She  thought :  To-night  I'll  stay  awake  and  see 

them.     But  she  never  did.     Only  once  she  dreamed 

that  she  heard  footsteps  and  saw  the  lighted  candle, 

going  out  of  the  room ;  going,  going  away. 

The  blue  egg  stood  on  the  marble  top  of  the 
cabinet  where  you  could  see  it  from  everywhere ;  it 
was  supported  by  a  gold  waistband,  by  gold  hoops 
and  gold  legs,  and  it  wore  a  gold  ball  with  a  frill 
round  it  like  a  crown.  You  would  never  have 
guessed  what  was  inside  it.  You  touched  a  spring 
in  its  waistband  and  it  flew  open,  and  then  it  was  a 
workbox.  Gold  scissors  and  thimble  and  stiletto 
sitting  up  in  holes  cut  in  white  velvet. 

The  blue  egg  was  the  first  thing  she  thought  of 
when  she  came  into  the  room.  There  was  nothing 


8  Harriett  Frean 

like  that  in  Connie  Hancock's  Papa's  house.     It  be- 
longed to  Mamma. 

Harriett  thought :  If  only  she  could  have  a  birth- 
day and  wake  up  and  find  that  the  blue  egg  belonged 
to  her 

Ida,  the  wax  doll,  sat  on  the  drawing-room  sofa, 
dressed  ready  for  the  birthday.  The  darling  had  real 
person's  eyes  made  of  glass,  and  real  eyelashes  and 
hair.  Little  finger  and  toenails  were  marked  in  the 
wax,  and  she  smelt  of  the  lavender  her  clothes  were 
laid  in. 

But  Emily,  the  new  birthday  doll,  smelt  of  com- 
position and  of  gum  and  hay;  she  had  flat,  painted 
hair  and  eyes,  and  a  foolish  look  on  her  face,  like 
Nurse's  aunt,  Mrs.  Spinker,  when  she  said  "Lawk-a- 
daisy!"  Although  Papa  had  given  her  Emily,  she 
could  never  feel  for  her  the  real,  loving  love  she  felt 
for  Ida. 

And  her  mother  had  told  her  that  she  must  lend 
Ida  to  Connie  Hancock  if  Connie  wanted  her. 

Mamma  couldn't  see  that  such  a  thing  was  not 
possible. 


Harriett  Frean  9 

"My  darling,  you  mustn't  be  selfish.  You  must 
do  what  your  little  guest  wants." 

"I  can't." 

But  she  had  to ;  and  she  was  sent  out  of  the  room 
because  she  cried.  It  was  much  nicer  upstairs  in  the 
nursery  with  Mimi,  the  Angora  cat.  Mimi  knew 
that  something  sorrowful  had  happened.  He  sat 
still,  just  lifting  the  root  of  his  tail  as  you  stroked 
him.  If  only  she  could  have  stayed  there  with  Mimi ; 
but  in  the  end  she  had  to  go  back  to  the  drawing- 
room. 

If  only  she  could  have  told  Mamma  what  it  felt 
like  to  see  Connie  with  Ida  in  her  arms,  squeezing 
her  tight  to  her  chest  and  patting  her  as  if  Ida  had 
been  her  child.  She  kept  on  saying  to  herself  that 
Mamma  didn't  know;  she  didn't  know  what  she  had 
done.  And  when  it  was  all  over  she  took  the  wax 
doll  and  put  her  in  the  long  narrow  box  she  had  come 
in,  and  buried  her  in  the  bottom  drawer  in  the 
spare-room  wardrobe.  She  thought:  If  I  can't 
have  her  to  myself  I  won't  have  her  at  all.  I've  got 
Emily.  I  shall  just  have  to  pretend  she's  not  an 
idiot. 


io  Harriett  Frean 

She  pretended  Ida  was  dead;  lying  in  her  paste- 
board coffin  and  buried  in  the  wardrobe  cemetery. 

It  was  hard  work  pretending  that  Emily  didn't 
look  like  Mrs.  Spinker. 


n 

SHE  had  a  belief  that  her  father's  house  was  nicer 
than  other  people's  houses.  It  stood  off  from  the 
high  road,  in  Black's  Lane,  at  the  head  of  the  town. 
You  came  to  it  by  a  row  of  tall  elms  standing  up 
along  Mr.  Hancock's  wall.  Behind  the  last  tree  its 
slender  white  end  went  straight  up  from  the  pave- 
ment, hanging  out  a  green  balcony  like  a  bird  cage 
above  the  green  door. 

The  lane  turned  sharp  there  and  went  on,  and 
the  long  brown  garden  wall  went  with  it.  Behind 
the  wall  the  lawn  flowed  down  from  the  white  house 
and  the  green  veranda  to  the  cedar  tree  at  the  bot- 
tom. Beyond  the  lawn  was  the  kitchen  garden,  and 
beyond  the  kitchen  garden  the  orchard;  little  crip- 
pled apple  trees  bending  down  in  the  long  grass. 

She  was  glad  to  come  back  to  the  house  after  the 
walk  with  Eliza,  the  nurse,  or  Annie,  the  housemaid ; 
to  go  through  all  the  rooms  looking  for  Mimi ;  look- 
ing for  Mamma,  telling  her  what  had  happened. 


12  Harriett  Frean 

"Mamma,  the  red-haired  woman  in  the  sweetie 
shop  has  got  a  little  baby,  and  its  hair's  red,  too. 
.  .  .  Some  day  I  shall  have  a  little  baby.  I  shall 
dress  him  in  a  long  gown " 

"Robe." 

"Robe,  with  bands  of  lace  all  down  it,  as  long  as 
that;  and  a  white  christening  cloak  sewn  with  white 
roses.  Won't  he  look  sweet?" 

"Very  sweet." 

"He  shall  have  lots  of  hair.  I  shan't  love  him  if 
he  hasn't." 

"Oh,  yes,  you  will." 

"No.  He  must  have  thick,  flossy  hair  like  Mimi, 
so  that  I  can  stroke  him.  Which  would  you  rather 
have,  a  little  girl  or  a  little  boy?" 

"Well — what  do  you  think ?" 

"I  think — perhaps  I'd  rather  have  a  little  girl." 

She  would  be  like  Mamma,  and  her  little  girl 
would  be  like  herself.  She  couldn't  think  of  it  any 
other  way. 

The  school-treat  was  held  in  Mr.  Hancock's  field. 
All  afternoon  she  had  been  with  the  children,  play- 


Harriett  Frean  13 

ing  Oranges  and  lemons,  A  ring,  a  ring  of  roses,  and 
Here  we  come  gathering  nuts  in  May,  nuts  in  May, 
nuts  in  May:  over  and  over  again.  And  she  had 
helped  her  mother  to  hand  cake  and  buns  at  the  in- 
fants' table. 

The  guest-children's  tea  was  served  last  of  all,  up 
on  the  lawn  under  the  immense,  brown  brick,  many 
windowed  house.  There  wasn't  room  for  every- 
body at  the  table,  so  the  girls  sat  down  first  and  the 
boys  waited  for  their  turn.  Some  of  them  were 
pushing  and  snatching. 

She  knew  what  she  would  have.  She  would  begin 
with  a  bun,  and  go  on  through  two  sorts  of  jam  to 
Madeira  cake,  and  end  with  raspberries  and  cream. 
Or  perhaps  it  would  be  safer  to  begin  with  rasp- 
berries and  cream.  She  kept  her  face  very  still,  so 
as  not  to  look  greedy,  and  tried  not  to  stare  at  the 
Madeira  cake  lest  people  should  see  she  was  thinking 
of  it.  Mrs.  Hancock  had  given  her  somebody  else's 
crumby  plate.  She  thought:  I'm  not  greedy.  I'm 
really  and  truly  hungry.  She  could  draw  herself  in 
at  the  waist  with  a  flat,  exhausted  feeling,  like  the 
two  ends  of  a  concertina  coming  together. 


14  Harriett  Frean 

She  was  doing  this  when  she  saw  her  mother 
standing  on  the  other  side  of  the  table,  looking  at 
her  and  making  signs. 

"If  you've  finished,  Hatty,  you'd  better  get  up  and 
let  that  little  boy  have  something." 

They  were  all  turning  round  and  looking  at  her. 
And  there  was  the  crumby  plate  before  her.  They 
were  thinking:  "That  greedy  little  girl  has  gone  on 
and  on  eating."  She  got  up  suddenly,  not  speaking, 
and  left  the  table,  the  Madeira  cake  and  the  rasp- 
berries and  cream.  She  could  feel  her  skin  all  hot 
and  wet  with  shame. 

And  now  she  was  sitting  up  in  the  drawing-room 
at  home.  Her  mother  had  brought  her  a  piece  of 
seed-cake  and  a  cup  of  milk  with  the  cream  on  it. 
Mamma's  soft  eyes  kissed  her  as  they  watched  her 
eating  her  cake  with  short  crumbly  bites,  like  a  little 
cat.  Mamma's  eyes  made  her  feel  so  good,  so 
good. 

"Why  didn't  you  tell  me  you  hadn't  finished  ?" 

"Finished?    I  hadn't  even  begun." 

"Oh-h,  darling,  why  didn't  you  tell  me  ?" 

"Because  I — I  don't  know." 


Harriett  Frean  15 

"Well,  I'm  glad  my  little  girl  didn't  snatch  and 
push.  It's  better  to  go  without  than  to  take  from 
other  people.  That's  ugly." 

Ugly.  Being  naughty  was  just  that.  Doing  ugly 
things.  Being  good  was  being  beautiful  like 
Mamma.  She  wanted  to  be  like  her  mother. 
Sitting  up  there  and  being  good  felt  delicious.  And 
the  smooth  cream  with  the  milk  running  under  it, 
thin  and  cold,  was  delicious  too. 

Suddenly  a  thought  came  rushing  at  her.  There 
was  God  and  there  was  Jesus.  But  even  God  and 
Jesus  were  not  more  beautiful  than  Mamma.  They 
couldn't  be. 

"You  mustn't  say  things  like  that,  Hatty;  you 
mustn't,  really.  It  might  make  something  happen." 

"Oh,  no,  it  won't.  You  don't  suppose  they're  lis- 
tening all  the  time." 

Saying  things  like  that  made  you  feel  good  and 
at  the  same  time  naughty,  which  was  more  exciting 
than  only  being  one  or  the  other.  But  Mamma's 
frightened  face  spoiled  it.  What  did  she  think — 
what  did  she  think  God  would  do? 

Red  campion 


1 6  Harriett  Frean 

At  the  bottom  of  the  orchard  a  door  in  the  wall 
opened  into  Black's  Lane,  below  the  three  tall 
elms. 

She  couldn't  believe  she  was  really  walking  there 
by  herself.  It  had  come  all  of  a  sudden,  the  thought 
that  she  must  do  it,  that  she  must  go  out  into  the 
lane ;  and  when  she  found  the  door  unlatched,  some- 
thing seemed  to  take  hold  of  her  and  push  her  out. 
She  was  forbidden  to  go  into  Black's  Lane ;  she  was 
not  even  allowed  to  walk  there  with  Annie. 

She  kept  on  saying  to  herself:  "I'm  in  the  lane. 
I'm  in  the  lane.  I'm  disobeying  Mamma." 

Nothing  could  undo  that.  She  had  disobeyed  by 
just  standing  outside  the  orchard  door.  Disobedi- 
ence was  such  a  big  and  awful  thing  that  it  was  waste 
not  to  do  something  big  and  awful  with  it.  So  she 
went  on,  up  and  up,  past  the  three  tall  elms.  She 
was  a  big  girl,  wearing  black  silk  aprons  and  learning 
French.  Walking  by  herself.  When  she  arched  her 
back  and  stuck  her  stomach  out  she  felt  like  a  tall 
lady  in  a  crinoline  and  shawl.  She  swung  her  hips 
and  made  her  skirts  fly  out.  That  was  her  grown- 
up crinoline,  swing-swinging  as  she  went. 


Harriett  Frean  17 

At  the  turn  the  cow's  parsley  and  rose  campion 
began ;  on  each  side  a  long  trail  of  white  froth  with 
the  red  tops  of  the  campion  pricking  through.  She 
made  herself  a  nosegay. 

Past  the  second  turn  you  came  to  the  waste  ground 
covered  with  old  boots  and  rusted,  crumpled  tins. 
The  little  dirty  brown  house  stood  there  behind 
the  rickety  blue  palings;,  narrow,  like  the  piece 
of  a  house  that  has  been  cut  in  two.  It  hid, 
stooping  under  the  ivy  bush  on  its  roof.  It  was 
not  like  the  houses  people  live  in;  there  was 
something  queer,  some  secret,  frightening  thing 
about  it. 

The  man  came  out  and  went  to  the  gate  and  stood 
there.  He  was  the  frightening  thing.  When  he  saw 
her  he  stepped  back  and  crouched  behind  the  palings, 
ready  to  jump  out. 

She  turned  slowly,  as  if  she  had  thought  of  some- 
thing. She  mustn't  run.  She  must  not  run.  If  she 
ran  he  would  come  after  her. 

Her  mother  was  coming  down  the  garden  walk, 
tall  and  beautiful  in  her  silver-gray  gown  with  the 
bands  of  black  velvet  on  the  flounces  and  the  sleeves ; 


i8  Harriett  Frean 

her  wide,  hooped  skirts  swung,  brushing  the  flower 
borders. 

She  ran  up  to  her,  crying,  "Mamma,  I  went  up  the 
lane  where  you  told  me  not  to." 

"No,  Hatty,  no;  you  didn't" 

You  could  see  she  wasn't  angry.  She  was  fright- 
ened. 

"I  did.    I  did." 

Her  mother  took  the  bunch  of  flowers  out  of  her 
hand  and  looked  at  it.  "Yes,"  she  said,  "that's 
where  the  dark-red  campion  grows." 

She  was  holding  the  flowers  up  to  her  face.  It 
was  awful,  for  you  could  see  her  mouth  thicken  and 
redden  over  its  edges  and  shake.  She  hid  it  behind 
the  flowers.  And  somehow  you  knew  it  wasn't  your 
naughtiness  that  made  her  cry.  There  was  some- 
thing more. 

She  was  saying  in  a  thick,  soft  voice,  "It  was 
wrong  of  you,  my  darling." 

Suddenly  she  bent  her  tall  straightness.  "Rose 
campion,"  she  said,  parting  the  stems  with  her  long, 
thin  fingers.  "Look,  Hatty,  how  beautiful  they  are. 
Run  away  and  put  the  poor  things  in  water." 


Harriett  Frean  19 

She  was  so  quiet,  so  quiet,  and  her  quietness  hurt 
far  more  than  if  she  had  been  angry. 

She  must  have  gone  straight  back  into  the  house  to 
Papa.  Harriett  knew,  because  he  sent  for  her.  He 
was  quiet,  too.  .  .  .  That  was  the  little,  hiding  voice 
he  told  you  secrets  in.  ...  She  stood  close  up  to 
him,  between  his  knees,  and  his  arm  went  loosely 
round  her  to  keep  her  there  while  he  looked  into  her 
eyes.  You  could  smell  tobacco,  and  the  queer,  clean 
man's  smell  that  came  up  out  of  him  from  his  collar. 
He  wasn't  smiling;  but  somehow  his  eyes  looked 
kinder  than  if  they  had  smiled. 

"Why  did  you  do  it,  Hatty?" 

"Because — I  wanted  to  see  what  it  would  feel 
like." 

"You  mustn't  do  it  again.  Do  you  hear? — you 
mustn't  do  it." 

"Why?" 

"Why?  Because  it  makes  your  mother  unhappy. 
That's  enough  why." 

But  there  was  something  more.  Mamma  had  been 
frightened.  Something  to  do  with  the  frightening 
man  in  the  lane. 


2O  Harriett  Frean 

"Why  does  it  make  her?" 

She  knew ;  she  knew ;  but  she  wanted  to  see  what 
he  would  say. 

"I  said  that  was  enough.  .  .  .  Do  you  know  what 
you've  been  guilty  of  ?" 

"Disobedience." 

"More  than  that.  Breaking  trust.  Meanness.  It 
was  mean  and  dishonorable  of  you  when  you  knew 
you  wouldn't  be  punished." 

"Isn't  there  to  be  a  punishment  ?" 

"No.  People  are  punished  to  make  them  remem- 
ber. We  want  you  to  forget."  His  arm  tightened, 
drawing  her  closer.  And  the  kind,  secret  voice  went 
on.  "Forget  ugly  things.  Understand,  Hatty,  noth- 
ing is  forbidden.  We  don't  forbid,  because  we  trust 
you  to  do  what  we  wish.  To  behave  beautifully. 
.  .  .  There,  there." 

She  hid  her  face  on  his  breast  against  his  tickly 
coat,  and  cried. 

She  would  always  have  to  do  what  they  wanted; 
the  unhappiness  of  not  doing  it  was  more  than  she 
could  bear.  All  very  well  to  say  there  would  be  no 
punishment;  their  unhappiness  was  the  punishment. 


Harriett  Frean  21 

It  hurt  more  than  anything.  It  kept  on  hurting  when 
she  thought  about  it. 

The  first  minute  of  to-morrow  she  would  begin  be- 
having beautifully ;  as  beautifully  as  she  could.  They 
wanted  you  to;  they  wanted  it  more  than  anything 
because  they  were  so  beautiful.  So  good.  So  wise. 

But  three  years  went  before  Harriett  understood 
how  wise  they  had  been,  and  why  her  mother  took 
her  again  and  again  into  Black's  Lane  to  pick  red 
campion,  so  that  it  was  always  the  red  campion  she 
remembered.  They  must  have  known  all  the  time 
about  Black's  Lane;  Annie,  the  housemaid,  used  to 
say  it  was  a  bad  place ;  something  had  happened  to  a 
little  girl  there.  Annie  hushed  and  reddened  and 
wouldn't  tell  you  what  it  was.  Then  one  day,  when 
she  was  thirteen,  standing  by  the  apple  tree,  Connie 
Hancock  told  her.  A  secret.  .  .  .  Behind  the  dirty 
blue  palings.  .  .  .  She  shut  her  eyes,  squeezing  the 
lids  down,  frightened.  But  when  she  thought  of  the 
lane  she  could  see  nothing  but  the  green  banks,  the 
three  tall  elms,  and  the  red  campion  pricking  through 
the  white  froth  of  the  cow's  parsley;  her  mother 
stood  on  the  garden  walk  in  her  wide,  swinging 


22  Harriett  Frean 

gown ;  she  was  holding  the  red  and  white  flowers  up 
to  her  face  and  saying,  "Look,  how  beautiful  they 
are." 

She  saw  her  all  the  time  while  Connie  was  telling 
her  the  secret.  She  wanted  to  get  up  and  go  to  her. 
Connie  knew  what  it  meant  when  you  stiffened  sud- 
denly and  made  yourself  tall  and  cold  and  silent. 
The  cold  silence  would  frighten  her  and  she  would 
go  away.  Then,  Harriett  thought,  she  could  get 
back  to  her  mother  and  Longfellow. 

Every  afternoon,  through  the  hours  before  her 
father  came  home,  she  sat  in  the  cool,  green-lighted 
drawing-room  reading  Evangeline  aloud  to  her 
mother.  When  they  came  to  the  beautiful  places 
they  looked  at  each  other  and  smiled. 

She  passed  through  her  fourteenth  year  sedately, 
to  the  sound  of  Evangeline,  Her  upright  body,  her 
lifted,  delicately  obstinate,  rather  wistful  face  ex- 
pressed her  small,  conscious  determination  to  be 
good.  She  was  silent  with  emotion  when  Mrs.  Han- 
cock told  her  she  was  growing  like  her  mother. 


Ill 

CONNIE  HANCOCK  was  her  friend. 

She  had  once  been  a  slender,  wide-mouthed  child, 
top-heavy  with  her  damp  clumps  of  hair.  Now  she 
was  squaring  and  thickening  and  looking  horrid,  like 
Mr.  Hancock.  Beside  her  Harriett  felt  tall  and  ele- 
gant and  slender. 

Mamma  didn't  know  what  Connie  was  really  like ; 
it  was  one  of  those  things  you  couldn't  tell  her.  She 
said  Connie  would  grow  out  of  it.  Meanwhile  you 
could  see  he  wouldn't.  Mr.  Hancock  had  red  whis- 
kers, and  his  face  squatted  down  in  his  collar,  instead 
of  rising  nobly  up  out  of  it  like  Papa's.  It  looked 
as  if  it  was  thinking  things  that  made  its  eyes  bulge 
and  its  mouth  curl  over  and  slide  like  a  drawn  loop. 
When  you  talked  about  Mr.  Hancock,  Papa  gave  a 
funny  laugh  as  if  he  was  something  improper.  He 
said  Connie  ought  to  have  red  whiskers. 

Mrs.  Hancock,  Connie's  mother,  was  Mamma's 

dearest  friend.     That  was  why  there  had  always 

23 


24  Harriett  Frean 

been  Connie.  She  could  remember  her,  squirming 
and  spluttering  in  her  high  nursery  chair.  And 
there  had  always  been  Mrs.  Hancock,  refined  and 
mournful,  looking  at  you  with  gentle,  disappointed 
eyes. 

She  was  glad  that  Connie  hadn't  been  sent  to  her 
boarding-school,  so  that  nothing  could  come  be- 
tween her  and  Priscilla  Heaven. 

Priscilla  was  her  real  friend. 

It  had  begun  in  her  third  term,  when  Priscilla  first 
came  to  the  school,  unhappy  and  shy,  afraid  of  the 
new  faces.  Harriett  took  her  to  her  room. 

She  was  thin,  thin,  in  her  shabby  black  velvet 
jacket.  She  stood  looking  at  herself  in  the  greenish 
glass  over  the  yellow-painted  chest  of  drawers.  Her 
heavy  black  hair  had  dragged  the  net  and  broken  it. 
She  put  up  her  thin  arms,  helpless. 

"They'll  never  keep  me,"  she  said.  "I'm  so 
untidy." 

"It  wants  more  pins,"  said  Harriett.  "Ever  so 
ma-ny  more  pins.  If  you  put  them  in  head  down- 
wards they'll  fall  out.  I'll  show  you." 


Harriett  Frean  25 

Priscilla  trembled  with  joy  when  Harriett  asked 
her  to  walk  with  her;  she  had  been  afraid  of  her  at 
first  because  she  behaved  so  beautifully. 

Soon  they  were  always  together.  They  sat  side 
by  side  at  the  dinner  table  and  in  school,  black  head 
and  golden  brown  leaning  to  each  other  over  the 
same  book;  they  walked  side  by  side  in  the  packed 
procession,  going  two  by  two.  They  slept  in  the 
same  room,  the  two  white  beds  drawn  close  together ; 
a  white  dimity  curtain  hung  between;  they  drew  it 
back  so  that  they  could  see  each  other  lying  there  in 
the  summer  dusk  and  in  the  clear  mornings  when 
they  waked. 

Harriett  loved  Priscilla's  odd,  dusk-white  face; 
her  long  hound's  nose,  seeking ;  her  wide  mouth,  rest- 
less between  her  shallow,  fragile  jaws;  her  eyes, 
black,  cleared  with  spots  of  jade  gray,  prominent, 
showing  white  rims  when  she  was  startled.  She 
started  at  sudden  noises;  she  quivered  and  stared 
when  you  caught  her  dreaming;  she  cried  when  the 
organ  burst  out  triumphantly  in  church.  You  had 
to  take  care  every  minute  that  you  didn't  hurt  her. 

She  cried  when  term  ended  and  she  had  to  go 


26  Harriett  Frean 

home.  Priscilla's  home  was  horrible.  Her  father 
drank,  her  mother  fretted;  they  were  poor;  a  rich 
aunt  paid  for  her  schooling. 

When  the  last  midsummer  holidays  came  she  spent 
them  with  Harriett. 

"Oh-h-h!"  Prissie  drew  in  her  breath  when  she 
heard  they  were  to  sleep  together  in  the  big  bed  in 
the  spare  room.  She  went  about  looking  at  things, 
curious,  touching  them  softly  as  if  they  were  sacred. 
She  loved  the  two  rough-coated  china  lambs  on  the 
chimney-piece,  and  "Oh — the  dear  little  china  boxes 
with  the  flowers  sitting  up  on  them." 

But  when  the  bell  rang  she  stood  quivering  in  the 
doorway. 

"I'm  afraid  of  your  father  and  mother,  Hatty. 
They  won't  like  me.  I  know  they  won't  like  me." 

"They  will.    They'll  love  you,"  Hatty  said. 

And  they  did.  They  were  sorry  for  the  little 
white-faced,  palpitating  thing. 

It  was  their  last  night.  Priscilla  wasn't  going 
back  to  school  again.  Her  aunt,  she  said,  was  only 
paying  for  a  year.  They  lay  together  in  the  big  bed, 
dim,  face  to  face,  talking. 


Harriett  Frean  27 

"Hatty  —  if  you  wanted  to  do  something  most  aw- 
fully, more  than  anything  else  in  the  world,  and  it 
was  wrong,  would  you  be  able  not  to  do  it  ?" 

"I  hope  so.  I  think  I  would,  because  I'd  know  if  I 
did  it  would  make  Papa  and  Mamma  unhappy." 

"Yes,  but  suppose  it  was  giving  up  something  you 
wanted,  something  you  loved  more  than  them  —  could 
you?" 

"Yes.  If  it  was  wrong  for  me  to  have  it.  And  I 
couldn't  love  anything  more  than  them." 

"But  if  you  did,  you'd  give  it  up." 

"I'd  have  to." 

"Hatty—  I  couldn't." 

"Oh,  yes,  you  could  if  I  could." 

"No.    No.  .  .  ." 

"How  do  you  know  you  couldn't?" 

"Because  I  haven't.  I  —  I  oughtn't  to  have  gone 
on  staying  here.  My  father's  ill.  They  wanted  me 
to  go  to  them  and  I  wouldn't  go." 

"Oh, 


"There,  you  see.  But  I  couldn't.  I  couldn't.  I 
was  so  happy  here  with  you.  I  couldn't  give  it  up." 

"If  your  father  had  been  like  Papa  you  would 
have." 


28  Harriett  Frean 

"Yes.  I'd  do  anything  for  him,  because  he's  your 
father.  It's  you  I  couldn't  give  up." 

"You'll  have  to  some  day." 

"When— when?" 

"When  somebody  else  conies.  When  you're 
married." 

"I  shall  never  marry.  Never.  I  shall  never  want 
anybody  but  you.  If  we  could  always  be  together. 
...  I  can't  think  why  people  marry,  Hatty." 

"Still,"  Hatty  said,  "they  do." 

"It's  because  they  haven't  ever  cared  as  you  and 
me  care.  .  .  .  Hatty,  if  I  don't  marry  anybody,  you 
won't,  will  you  ?" 

"I'm  not  thinking  of  marrying  anybody." 

"No.  But  promise,  promise  on  your  honor  you 
won't  ever." 

"I'd  rather  not  promise.  You  see,  I  might.  I 
shall  love  you  all  the  same,  Priscilla,  all  my  life." 

"No,  you  won't.  It'll  all  be  different.  I  love  you 
more  than  you  love  me.  But  I  shall  love  you  all 
my  life  and  it  won't  be  different.  I  shall  never 
marry." 

"Perhaps  I  shan't,  either,"  Harriett  said. 


Harriett  Frean  29 

They  exchanged  gifts.  Harriett  gave  Priscilla  a 
rosewood  writing  desk  inlaid  with  mother-o'-pearl, 
and  Priscilla  gave  Harriett  a  pocket-handkerchief 
case  she  had  made  herself  of  fine  gray  canvas  em- 
broidered with  blue  flowers  like  a  sampler  and  lined 
with  blue  and  white  plaid  silk.  On  the  top  part  you 
read  "Pocket  handkerchiefs"  in  blue  lettering,  and 
on  the  bottom  "Harriett  Frean,"  and,  tucked  away 
in  one  corner,  "Priscilla  Heaven:  September,  1861." 


IV 

SHE  remembered  the  conversation.  Her  father 
sitting,  straight  and  slender,  in  his  chair,  talking  in 
that  quiet  voice  of  his  that  never  went  sharp  or 
deep  or  quavering,  that  paused  now  and  then  on  an 
amused  inflection,  his  long  lips  straightening  be- 
tween the  perpendicular  grooves  of  his  smile.  She 
loved  his  straight,  slender  face,  clean-shaven,  the 
straight,  slightly  jutting  jaw,  the  dark-blue  flattish 
eyes  under  the  black  eyebrows,  the  silver-grizzled 
hair  that  fitted  close  like  a  cap,  curling  in  a  silver 
brim  above  his  ears. 

He  was  talking  about  his  business  as  if  more  than 
anything  it  amused  him. 

"There's  nothing  gross  and  material  about  stock- 
broking.  It's  like  pure  mathematics.  You're  deal- 
ing in  abstractions,  ideal  values,  all  the  time.  You 
calculate — in  curves."  His  hand,  holding  the  unlit 
cigar,  drew  a  curve,  a  long  graceful  one,  in  mid-air. 

"You  know  what's  going  to  happen  all  the  time. 

30 


Harriett  Frean  31 

.  .  .  The  excitement  begins  when  you  don't  quite 
know  and  you  risk  it;  when  it's  getting  dangerous. 
.  .  .  The  higher  mathematics  of  the  game.  If  you 
can  afford  them;  if  you  haven't  a  wife  and  family — 
I  can  see  the  fascination.  .  .  ." 

He  sat  holding  his  cigar  in  one  hand,  looking  at  it 
without  seeing  it,  seeing  the  fascination  and  smiling 
at  it,  amused  and  secure. 

And  her  mother,  bending  over  her  bead-work, 
smiled  too,  out  of  their  happiness,  their  security. 

He  would  lean  back,  smoking  his  cigar  and  look- 
ing at  them  out  of  contented,  half -shut  eyes,  as  they 
stitched,  one  at  each  end  of  the  long  canvas  fender 
stool.  He  was  waiting,  he  said,  for  the  moment 
when  their  heads  would  come  bumping  together  in 
the  middle. 

Sometimes  they  would  sit  like  that,  not  exchang- 
ing ideas,  exchanging  only  the  sense  of  each  other's 
presence,  a  secure,  profound  satisfaction  that  be- 
longed as  much  to  their  bodies  as  their  minds;  it 
rippled  on  their  faces  with  their  quiet  smiling,  it 
breathed  with  their  breath.  Sometimes  she  or  her 
mother  read  aloud,  Mrs.  Browning  or  Charles  Dick- 


32  Harriett  Frean 

ens;  or  the  biography  of  some  Great  Man,  sitting 
there  in  the  velvet-curtained  room  or  out  on  the  lawn 
under  the  cedar  tree.  A  motionless  communion 
broken  by  walks  in  the  sweet-smelling  fields  and 
deep,  elm-screened  lanes.  And  there  were  short 
journeys  into  London  to  a  lecture  or  a  concert,  and 
now  and  then  the  surprise  and  excitement  of  the 
play. 

One  day  her!  mother  smoothed  out  her  long, 
hanging  curls  and  tucked  them  away  under  a  net. 
Harriett  had  a  little  shock  of  dismay  and  resent- 
ment, hating  change. 

And  the  long,  long  Sundays  spaced  the  weeks  and 
the  months,  hushed  and  sweet  and  rather  enervating, 
yet  with  a  sort  of  thrill  in  them  as  if  somewhere  the 
music  of  the  church  organ  went  on  vibrating.  Her 
mother  had  some  secret:  some  happy  sense  of  God 
that  she  gave  to  you  and  you  took  from  her  as  you 
took  food  and  clothing,  but  not  quite  knowing  what 
it  was,  feeling  that  there  was  something  more  in  it, 
some  hidden  gladness,  some  perfection  that  you 
missed. 

Her  father  had  his  secret  too.  She  felt  that  it 
was  harder,  somehow,  darker  and  dangerous.  He 


Harriett  Frean  33 

read  dangerous  books:  Darwin  and  Huxley  and 
Herbert  Spencer.  Sometimes  he  talked  about  them. 

"There's  a  sort  of  fascination  in  seeing  how  far 
you  can  go.  ...  The  fascination  of  truth  might  be 
just  that — the  risk  that,  after  all,  it  mayn't  be  true, 
that  you  may  have  to  go  farther  and  farther,  per- 
haps never  come  back." 

Her  mother  looked  up  with  her  bright,  still  eyes. 

"I  trust  the  truth.  I  know  that,  however  far  you 
go,  you'll  come  back  some  day." 

"I  believe  you  see  all  of  them — Darwin  and  Hux- 
ley and  Herbert  Spencer — coming  back,"  he  said. 

"Yes,  I  do." 

His  eyes  smiled,  loving  her.  But  you  could  see  it 
amused  him,  too,  to  think  of  them,  all  those  reckless, 
courageous  thinkers,  coming  back,  to  share  her 
secret.  His  thinking  was  just  a  dangerous  game  he 
played. 

She  looked  at  her  father  with  a  kind  of  awe  as 
he  sat  there,  reading  his  book,  in  danger  and  yet 
safe. 

She  wanted  to  know  what  that  fascination  was. 
She  took  down  Herbert  Spencer  and  tried  to  read 
him.  She  made  a  point  of  finishing  every  book  she 


34  Harriett  Frean 

had  begun,  for  her  pride  couldn't  bear  being  beaten. 
Her  head  grew  hot  and  heavy:  she  read  the  same 
sentences  over  and  over  again;  they  had  no  mean- 
ing; she  couldn't  understand  a  single  word  of  Her- 
bert Spencer.  He  had  beaten  her.  As  she  put  the 
book  back  in  its  place  she  said  to  herself :  "I  mustn't. 
If  I  go  on,  if  I  get  to  the  interesting  part  I  may  lose 
my  faith."  And  soon  she  made  herself  believe  that 
this  was  really  the  reason  why  she  had  given  it  up. 

Besides  Connie  Hancock  there  were  Lizzie  Pierce 
and  Sarah  Barmby. 

Exquisite  pleasure  to  walk  with  "Lizzie  Pierce. 
Lizzie's  walk  was  a  sliding,  swooping  dance  of  little 
pointed  feet,  always  as  if  she  were  going  out  to  meet 
somebody,  her  sharp,  black-eyed  face  darting  and 
turning. 

"My  dear,  he  kept  on  doing  thiS'  (Lizzie  did  it) 
"as  if  he  was  trying  to  sit  on  himself  to  keep  him 
from  flying  off  into  space  like  a  cork.  Fancy  pro- 
posing on  three  tumblers  of  soda  water!  I  might 
have  been  Mrs.  Pennefather  but  for  that." 

Lizzie  went  about  laughing,  laughing  at  every- 


Harriett  Frean  35 

body,  looking  for  something  to  laugh  at  everywhere. 
Now  and  then  she  would  stop  suddenly  to  contem- 
plate the  vision  she  had  created. 

"If  Connie  didn't  wear  a  bustle — or,  oh  my  dear, 
if  Mr.  Hancock  did " 

"Mr.  Hancock!"  Clear,  firm  laughter,  chiming 
and  tinkling. 

"Goodness !  To  think  how  many  ridiculous  peo- 
ple there  are  in  the  world !" 

"I  believe  you  see  something  ridiculous  in  me." 

"Only  when — only  when " 

She  swung  her  parasol  in  time  to  her  sing-song. 
She  wouldn't  say  when. 

"Lizzie — not — not  when  I'm  in  my  black  lace 
fichu  and  the  little  round  hat  ?" 

"Oh,  dear  me — no.    Not  then." 

The  little  round  hat,  Lizzie  wore  one  like  it  her- 
self, tilted  forward,  perched  on  her  chignon. 

"Well,  then "  she  pleaded. 

Lizzie's  face  darted  its  teasing,  mysterious  smile. 

She  loved  Lizzie  best  of  her  friends  after  Pris- 
cilla.  She  loved  her  mockery  and  her  teasing  wit. 

And  there  was  Lizzie's   friend,   Sarah  Barmby, 


36  Harriett  Frean 

who  lived  in  one  of  those  little  shabby  villas  on  the 
London  road  and  looked  after  her  father.  She 
moved  about  the  villa  in  an  unseeing,  shambling 
way,  hitting  herself  against  the  furniture.  Her  face 
was  heavy  with  a  gentle,  brooding  goodness,  and  she 
had  little  eyes  that  blinked  and  twinkled  in  the  heavi- 
ness, as  if  something  amused  her.  At  first  you  kept 
on  wondering  what  the  joke  was,  till  you  saw  it  was 
only  a  habit  Sarah  had.  She  came  when  she  could 
spare  time  from  her  father. 

Next  to  Lizzie,  Harriett  loved  Sarah.  She  loved 
her  goodness. 

And  Connie  Hancock,  bouncing  about  hospitably 
in  the  large,  rich  house.  Tea-parties  and  dances  at 
the  Hancocks'. 

She  wasn't  sure  that  she  liked  dancing.  There 
was  something  obscurely  dangerous  about  it.  She 
was  afraid  of  being  lifted  off  her  feet  and  swung 
on  and  on,  away  from  her  safe,  happy  life.  She  was 
stiff  and  abrupt  with  her  partners,  convinced  that 
none  of  those  men  who  liked  Connie  Hancock  could 
like  her,  and  anxious  to  show  them  that  she  didn't 
expect  them  to.  She  was  afraid  of  what  they  were 
thinking.  And  she  would  slip  away  early,  running 


Harriett  Frean  37 

down  the  garden  to  the  gate  at  the  bottom  of  the 
lane  where  her  father  waited  for  her.  She  loved 
the  still  coldness  of  the  night  under  the  elms,  and  the 
strong,  tight  feel  of  her  father's  arm  when  she 
hung  on  it  leaning  towards  him,  and  his  "There  we 
are !"  as  he  drew  her  closer.  Her  mother  would  look 
up  from  the  sofa  and  ask  always  the  same  question, 
"Well,  did  anything  nice  happen?" 

Till  at  last  she  answered,  "No.  Did  you  think  it 
would,  Mamma?" 

"You  never  know,"  said  her  mother. 

"I  know  everything." 

"Everything?" 

"Everything  that  could  happen  at  the  Hancocks' 
dances." 

Her  mother  shook  her  head  at  her.  She  knew  that 
in  secret  Mamma  was  glad;  bait  she  answered  the 
reproof. 

"It's  mean  of  me  to  say  that  when  I've  eaten  four 
of  their  ices.  They  were  strawberry,  and  chocolate 
and  vanilla,  all  in  one." 

"Well,  they  won't  last  much  longer." 

"Not  at  that  rate,"  her  father  said. 

"I  meant  the  dances,"  said  her  mother. 


38  Harriett  Frean 

And  sure  enough,  soon  after  Connie's  engagement 
to  young  Mr.  Pennefather,  they  ceased. 

And  the  three  friends,  Connie  and  Sarah  and 
Lizzie,  came  and  went.  She  loved  them;  and  yet 
when  they  were  there  they  broke  something,  some- 
thing secret  and  precious  between  her  and  her  father 
and  mother,  and  when  they  were  gone  she  felt  the 
stir,  the  happy  movement  of  coming  together  again, 
drawing  in  close,  close,  after  the  break. 

"We  only  want  each  other."  Nobody  else  really 
mattered,  not  even  Priscilla  Heaven. 

Year  after  year  the  same.  Her  mother  parted 
her  hair  into  two  sleek  wings ;  she  wore  a  rosette  and 
lappets  of  black  velvet  and  lace  on  a  glistening  beetle- 
backed  chignon.  And  Harriett  felt  again  her  shock 
of  resentment.  She  hated  to  think  of  her  mother 
subject  to  change  and  time. 

And  Priscilla  came  year  after  year,  still  loving, 
still  protesting  that  she  would  never  marry.  Yet 
they  were  glad  when  even  Priscilla  had  gone  and  left 
them  to  each  other.  Only  each  other,  year  after 
year  the  same. 


PRISCILLA'S  last  visit  was  followed  by  another 
passionate  vow  that  she  would  never  marry.  Then 
within  three  weeks  she  wrote  again,  telling  of  her 
engagement  to  Robin  Lethbridge. 

"...  I  haven't  known  him  very  long,  and  Mamma 
says  it's  too  soon;  but  he  makes  me  feel  as  if  I  had 
known  him  all  my  life.  I  know  I  said  I  wouldn't, 
but  I  couldn't  tell ;  I  didn't  know  it  would  be  so  dif- 
ferent I  couldn't  have  believed  that  anybody  could 
be  so  happy.  You  won't  mind,  Hatty.  We  can  love 
each  other  just  the  same.  ..." 

Incredible  that  Priscilla,  who  could  be  so  beaten 
down  and  crushed  by  suffering,  should  have  risen  to 
such  an  ecstasy.  Her  letters  had  a  swinging  lilt,  a 
hurried  beat,  like  a  song  bursting,  a  heart  beating  for 
joy  too  fast. 

It  would  have  to  be  a  long  engagement.  Robin 
was  in  a  provincial  bank,  he  had  his  way  to 

make.     Then,  a  year  later,  Prissy  wrote  and  told 

39 


40  Harriett  Frean 

them  that  Robin  had  got  a  post  in  Parson's  Bank  in 
the  City.  He  didn't  know  a  soul  in  London.  Would 
they  be  kind  to  him  and  let  him  come  to  them  some- 
times, on  Saturdays  and  Sundays? 

He  came  one  Sunday.  Harriett  had  wondered 
what  he  would  be  like,  and  he  was  tall,  slender- 
waisted,  wide-shouldered;  he  had  a  square,  very 
white  forehead;  his  brown  hair  was  parted  on  one 
side,  half  curling  at  the  tips  above  his  ears.  His 
eyes — thin,  black  crystal,  shining,  turning,  showing 
speckles  of  brown  and  gray;  perfectly  set  under 
straight  eyebrows  laid  very  black  on  the  white  skin. 
His  round,  pouting  chin  had  a  dent  in  it.  The  face 
in  between-  was  thin  and  irregular ;  the  nose  straight 
and  serious  and  rather  long  in  profile,  with  a  dip  and 
a  rise  at  three-quarters;  in  full  face  straight  again 
but  shortened.  His  eyes  had  another  meaning, 
deeper  and  steadier  than  his  fine  slender  mouth ;  but 
it  was  the  mouth  that  made  you  look  at  him.  One 
arch  of  the  bow  was  higher  than  the  other ;  now  and 
then  it  quivered  with  an  uneven,  sensitive  movement 
of  its  own. 

She  noticed  his  mouth's  little  dragging  droop  at 
the  corners  and  thought:  "Oh,  you're  cross.  If 


Harriett  Frean  41 

you're  cross  with  Prissie — if  you  make  her  un- 
happy"— but  when  he  caught  her  looking  at  him  the 
cross  lips  drew  back  in  a  sudden,  white,  confiding 
smile.  And  when  he  spoke  she  understood  why  he 
had  been  irresistible  to  Priscilla.  . 

He  had  come  three  Sundays  now,  four  perhaps; 
she  had  lost  count.  They  were  all  sitting  out  on  the 
lawn  under  the  cedar.  Suddenly,  as  if  he  had  only 
just  thought  of  it,  he  said: 

"It's  extraordinarily  good  of  you  to  have  me." 

"Oh,  well,"  her  mother  said,  "Prissie  is  Hatty's 
greatest  friend." 

"I  supposed  that  was  why  you  do  it." 

He  didn't  want  it  to  be  that.  He  wanted  it  to  be 
himself.  Himself.  He  was  proud.  He  didn't  like 
to  owe  anything  to  other  people,  not  even  to 
Prissie. 

Her  father  smiled  at  him.  "You  must  give  us 
time." 

He  would  never  give  it  or  take  it.  You  could  see 
him  tearing  at  things  in  his  impatience,  to  know 
them,  to  make  them  give  themselves  up  to  him  at 
once.  He  came  rushing  to  give  himself  up,  all  in  a 
minute,  to  make  himself  known. 


42  Harriett  Frean 

"It  isn't  fair,"  he  said.  "I  know  you  so  much 
better  than  you  know  me.  Priscilla's  always  talking 
about  you.  But  you  don't  know  anything  about 
me." 

"No.     We've  got  all  the  excitement." 

"And  the  risk,  sir." 

"And,  of  course,  the  risk."     He  liked  him. 

She  could  talk  to  Robin  Lethbridge  as  she  couldn't 
talk  to  Connie  Hancock's  young  men.  She  wasn't 
afraid  of  what  he  was  thinking.  She  was  safe  with 
him,  he  belonged  to  Priscilla  Heaven.  He  liked 
her  because  he  loved  Priscilla;  but  he  wanted  her 
to  like  him,  not  because  of  Priscilla,  but  for 
himself. 

She  talked  about  Priscilla:  "I  never  saw  anybody 
so  loving.  It  used  to  frighten  me;  because  you  can 
hurt  her  so  easily." 

"Yes.  Poor  little  Prissie,  she's  very  vulnerable," 
he  said. 

When  Priscilla  came  to  stay  it  was  almost  painful. 
Her  eyes  clung  to  him,  and  wouldn't  let  him  go.  If 
he  left  the  room  she  was  restless,  unhappy  till  he 
came  back.  She  went  out  for  long  walks  with  him 
and  returned  silent,  with  a  tired,  beaten  look.  She 


Harriett  Frean  43 

would  lie  on  the  sofa,  and  he  would  hang  over  her, 
gazing  at  her  with  strained,  unhappy  eyes. 

After  she  had  gone  he  kept  on  coming  more  than 
ever,  and  he  stayed  overnight.  Harriett  had  to 
walk  with  him  now.  He  wanted  to  talk,  to  talk 
about  himself,  endlessly. 

When  she  looked  in  the  glass  she  saw  a  face  she 
didn't  know :  bright-eyed,  flushed,  pretty.  The  little 
arrogant  lift  had  gone.  As  if  it  had  been  some- 
body else's  face  she  asked  herself,  in  wonder,  with- 
out rancor,  why  nobody  had  ever  cared  for  it.  Why  ? 
Why  ?  She  could  see  her  father  looking  at  her,  in- 
tent, as  if  he  wondered.  And  one  day  her  mother 
said,  "Do  you  think  you  ought  to  see  so  much  of 
Robin  ?  Do  you  think  it's  quite  fair  to  Prissie  ?" 

"Oh — Mamma!  ...  I  wouldn't.    I  haven't " 

"I  know.  You  couldn't  if  you  would,  Hatty. 
You  would  always  behave  beautifully.  But  are  you 
so  sure  about  Robin?" 

"Oh,  he  couldn't  care  for  anybody  but  Prissie. 
It's  only  because  he's  so  safe  with  me,  because  he 
knows  I  don't  and  he  doesn't " 

The  wedding  day  was  fixed  for  July.    After  all, 


44  Harriett  Frean 

they  were  going  to  risk  it.  By  the  middle  of  June 
the  wedding  presents  began  to  come  in. 

Harriett  and  Robin  Lethbridge  were  walking  up 
Black's  Lane.  The  hedges  were  a  white  bridal  froth 
of  cow's  parsley.  Every  now  and  then  she  swerved 
aside  to  pick  the  red  campion. 

He  spoke  suddenly.  "Do  you  know  what  a  dear 
little  face  you  have,  Hatty?  It's  so  clear  and  still 
and  it  behaves  so  beautifully." 

"Does  it?" 

She  thought  of  Prissie's  face,  dark  and  restless, 
never  clear,  never  still. 

"You're  not  a  bit  like  what  I  expected.  Prissie 
doesn't  know  what  you  are.  You  don't  know  your- 
self." 

"I  know  what  she  is." 

His  mouth's  uneven  quiver  beat  in  and  out  like  a 
pulse. 

"Don't  talk  to  me  about  Prissie !" 

Then  he  got  it  out.  He  tore  it  out  of  himself. 
He  loved  her. 

"Oh,  Robin "  Her  ringers  loosened  in  her 

dismay ;  she  went  dropping  red  campion. 


Harriett  Frean  45 

It  was  no  use,  he  said,  to  think  about  Prissie.  He 
couldn't  marry  her.  He  couldn't  marry  anybody  but 
Hatty;  Hatty  must  marry  him. 

"You  can't  say  you  don't  love  me,  Hatty." 

No.    She  couldn't  say  it ;  for  it  wouldn't  be  true. 

"Well,  then " 

"I  can't.  I'd  be  doing  wrong,  Robin.  I  feel  all 
the  time  as  if  she  belonged  to  you;  as  if  she  were 
married  to  you." 

"But  she  isn't.    It  isn't  the  same  thing." 

"To  me  it  is.  You  can't  undo  it.  It  would  be 
too  dishonorable." 

"Not  half  so  dishonorable  as  marrying  her  when 
I  don't  love  her." 

"Yes.  As  long  as  she  loves  you.  She  hasn't  any- 
body but  you.  She  was  so  happy.  So  happy.  Think 
of  the  cruelty  of  it.  Think  what  we  should  send 
her  back  to." 

"You  think  of  Prissie.    You  don't  think  of  me." 

"Because  it  would  kill  her." 

"How  about  you?" 

"It  can't  kill  us,  because  we  know  we  love  each 
other.  Nothing  can  take  that  from  us." 


46  Harriett  Frean 

"But  I  couldn't  be  happy  with  her,  Hatty.  She 
wears  me  out.  She's  so  restless." 

"We  couldn't  be  happy,  Robin.  We  should  al- 
ways be  thinking  of  what  we  did  to  her.  How  could 
we  be  happy?" 

"You  know  how." 

"Well,  even  if  we  were,  we've  no  right  to  get  our 
happiness  out  of  her  suffering." 

"Oh,  Hatty,  why  are  you  so  good,  so  good  ?" 

"I'm  not  good.  It's  only — there  are  some  things 
you  can't  do.  We  couldn't.  We  couldn't." 

"No,"  he  said  at  last.  "I  don't  suppose  we  could. 
Whatever  it's  like  I've  got  to  go  through  with  it." 

He  didn't  stay  that  night. 

She  was  crouching  on  the  floor  beside  her  father, 
her  arm  thrown  across  his  knees.  Her  mother  had 
left  them  there. 

"Papa — do  you  know?" 

"Your  mother  told  me.  .  .  .  You've  done  the 
right  thing." 

"You  don't  think  I've  been  cruel?  He  said  I 
didn't  think  of  him." 


Harriett  Frean  47 

"Oh,  no,  you  couldn't  do  anything  else." 
She  couldn't.    She  couldn't.    It  was  no  use  think- 
ing about  him.    Yet  night  after  night,  for  weeks  and 
months,  she  thought,  and  cried  herself  to  sleep. 

By  day  she  suffered  from  Lizzie's  sharp  eyes  and 
Sarah's  brooding  pity  and  Connie  Pennefather's  cal- 
lous, married  stare.  Only  with  her  father  and 
mother  she  had  peace. 


VI 

TOWARDS  spring  Harriett  showed  signs  of  depres- 
sion, and  they  took  her  to  the  south  of  France  and  to 
Bordighera  and  Rome.  In  Rome  she  recovered. 
Rome  was  one  of  those  places  you  ought  to  see ;  she 
had  always  been  anxious  to  do  the  right  thing.  In 
the  little  Pension  in  the  Via  Babuino  she  had  a  sense 
of  her  own  importance  and  the  importance  of  her 
father  and  mother.  They  were  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hil- 
ton Frean,  and  Miss  Harriett  Frean,  seeing  Rome. 

After  their  return  in  the  summer  he  began  to 
write  his  book,  The  Social  Order.  There  were 
things  that  had  to  be  said;  it  did  not  much  matter 
who  said  them  provided  they  were  said  plainly.  He 
dreamed  of  a  new  Social  State,  society  governing 
itself  without  representatives.  For  a  long  time  they 
lived  on  the  interest  and  excitement  of  the  book,  and 
when  it  came  out  Harriett  pasted  all  his  reviews  very 
neatly  into  an  album.  He  had  the  air  of  not  taking 

them  quite  seriously ;  but  he  subscribed  to  The  Spec- 

48 


Harriett  Frean  49 

tator,  and  sometimes  an  article  appeared  there  un- 
derstood to  have  been  written  by  Hilton  Frean. 

And  they  went  abroad  again  every  year.  They 
went  to  Florence  and  came  home  and  read  Romola 
and  Mrs.  Browning  and  Dante  and  The  Spectator; 
they  went  to  Assisi  and  read  the  Little  Flowers  of 
Saint  Francis;  they  went  to  Venice  and  read  Ruskin 
and  The  Spectator;  they  went  to  Rome  again  and 
read  Gibbon's  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire. Harriett  said,  "We  should  have  enjoyed  Rome 
more  if  we  had  read  Gibbon,"  and  her  mother  re- 
plied that  they  would  not  have  enjoyed  Gibbon  so 
much  if  they  had  not  seen  Rome.  Harriett  did  not 
really  enjoy  him ;  but  she  enjoyed  the  sound  of  her 
own  voice  reading  out  the  great  sentences  and  the 
rolling  Latin  names. 

She  had  brought  back  photographs  of  the  Colos- 
seum and  the  Forum  and  of  Botticelli's  Spring,  and 
a  della  Robbia  Madonna  in  a  shrine  of  fruit  and 
flowers,  and  hung  them  in  the  drawing-room.  And 
when  she  saw  the  blue  egg  in  its  gilt  frame  standing 
on  the  marble-topped  table,  she  wondered  how  she 
had  ever  loved  it,  and  wished  it  were  not  there.  It 


5o  Harriett  Frean 

had  been  one  of  Mamma's  wedding  presents.  Mrs. 
Hancock  had  given  it  her;  but  Mr.  Hancock  must 
have  bought  it. 

Harriett's  face  had  taken  on  again  its  arrogant 
lift.  She  esteemed  herself  justly.  She  knew  she 
was  superior  to  the  Hancocks  and  the  Penne  fathers 
and  to  Lizzie  Pierce  and  Sarah  Barmby;  even  to 
Priscilla.  When  she  thought  of  Robin  and  how 
she  had  given  him  up  she  felt  a  thrill  of  pleasure  in 
her  beautiful  behavior,  and  a  thrill  of  pride  in  re- 
membering that  he  had  loved  her  more  than 
Priscilla.  Her  mind  refused  to  think  of  Robin 
married. 

Two,  three,  five  years  passed,  with  a  perceptible 
acceleration,  and  Harriett  was  now  thirty. 

She  had  not  seen  them  since  the  wedding  day. 
Robin  had  gone  back  to  his  own  town ;  he  was  cash- 
ier in  a  big  bank  there.  For  four  years  Prissie's 
letters  came  regularly  every  month  or  so,  then  ceased 
abruptly. 

Then  Robin  wrote  and  told  her  of  Prissie's  illness. 
A  mysterious  paralysis.  It  had  begun  with  fits  of 
giddiness  in  the  street ;  Prissie  would  turn  round  and 


Harriett  Frean  51 

round  on  the  pavement;  then  falling  fits;  and  now 
both  legs  were  paralyzed,  but  Robin  thought  she  was 
gradually  recovering  the  use  of  her  hands. 

Harriett  did  not  cry.  The  shock  of  it  stopped  her 
tears.  She  tried  to  see  it  and  couldn't.  Poor  little 
Prissie.  How  terrible.  She  kept  on  saying  to  her- 
self she  couldn't  bear  to  think  of  Prissie  paralyzed. 
Poor  little  Prissie. 

And  poor  Robin 

Paralysis.  She  saw  the  paralysis  coming  between 
them,  separating  them,  and  inside  her  the  secret  pain 
was  soothed.  She  need  not  think  of  Robin  married 
any  more. 

She  was  going  to  stay  with  them.  Robin  had 
written  the  letter.  He  said  Prissie  wanted  her. 
When  she  met  him  on  the  platform  she  had  a  little 
shock  at  seeing  him  changed.  Changed.  His  face 
was  fuller,  and  a  dark  mustache  hid  the  sensitive, 
uneven,  pulsing  lip.  His  mouth  was  dragged  down 
further  at  the  corners.  But  he  was  the  same  Robin. 
In  the  cab,  going  to  the  house,  he  sat  silent,  breath- 
ing hard;  she  felt  the  tremor  of  his  consciousness 
and  knew  that  he  still  loved  her ;  more  than  he  loved 
Priscilla.  Poor  little  Prissie.  How  terrible! 


52  Harriett  Frean 

Priscilla  sat  by  the  fireplace  in  a  wheel  chair.  She 
became  agitated  when  she  saw  Harriett;  her  arms 
shook  as  she  lifted  them  for  the  embrace. 

"Hatty — you've  hardly  changed  a  bit."  Her 
voice  shook. 

Poor  little  Prissie.  She  was  thin,  thinner  than 
ever,  and  stiff  as  if  she  had  withered.  Her  face  was 
sallow  and  dry,  and  the  luster  had  gone  from  her 
black  hair.  Her  wide  mouth  twitched  and  wavered, 
wavered  and  twitched.  Though  it  was  warm  sum- 
mer she  sat  by  a  blazing  fire  with  the  windows  be- 
hind her  shut. 

Through  dinner  Harriett  and  Robin  were  silent 
and  constrained.  She  tried  not  to  see  Prissie  shak- 
ing and  jerking  and  spilling  soup  down  the  front  of 
her  gown.  Robin's  face  was  smooth  and  blank;  he 
pretended  to  be  absorbed  in  his  food,  so  as  not  to 
look  at  Prissie.  It  was  as  if  Prissie's  old  restlessness 
had  grown  into  that  ceaseless  jerking  and  twitching. 
And  her  eyes  fastened  on  Robin ;  they  clung  to  him 
and  wouldn't  let  him  go.  She  kept  on  asking  him 
to  do  things  for  her.  "Robin,  you  might  get  me  my 
shawl;"  and  Robin  would  go  and  get  the  shawl  and 


Harriett  Frean  53 

put  it  round  her.  Whenever  he  did  anything  for 
her  Prissie's  face  would  settle  down  into  a  quivering, 
deep  content. 

At  nine  o'clock  he  lifted  her  out  of  her  wheel 
chair.  Harriett  saw  his  stoop,  and  the  taut,  braced 
power  of  his  back  as  he  lifted.  Prissie  lay  in  his 
arms  with  rigid  limbs  hanging  from  loose  attach- 
ments, inert,  like  a  doll.  As  he  carried  her  upstairs 
to  bed  her  face  had  a  queer,  exalted  look  of  pleasure 
and  of  triumph. 

Harriett  and  Robin  sat  alone  together  in  his  study. 

"How  long  is  it  since  we've  seen  each  other?" 

"Five  years,  Robin." 

"It  isn't.    It  can't  be." 

"It  is." 

"I  suppose  it  is.  But  I  can't  believe  it.  I  can't  be- 
lieve I'm  married.  I  can't  believe  Prissie's  ill.  It 
doesn't  seem  real  with  you  sitting  there." 

"Nothing's  changed,  Robin,  except  that  you're 
more  serious." 

"Nothing's  changed,  except  that  I'm  more  serious 
than  ever.  .  .  .  Do  you  still  do  the  same  things? 
Do  you  still  sit  in  the  curly  chair,  holding  your  work 


54  Harriett  Frean 

up  to  your  chin  with  your  little  pointed  hands  like  a 
squirrel?  Do  you  still  see  the  same  people?" 

"I  don't  make  new  friends,  Robin." 

He  seemed  to  settle  down  after  that,  smiling  at  his 
own  thoughts,  appeased  .  .  . 

Lying  in  her  bed  in  the  spare  room,  Harriett  heard 
the  opening  and  shutting  of  Robin's  door.  She  still 
thought  of  Prissie's  paralysis  as  separating  them, 
still  felt  inside  her  a  secret,  unacknowledged  satisfac- 
tion. Poor  little  Prissie.  How  terrible.  Her  pity 
for  Priscilla  went  through  and  through  her  in  wave 
after  wave.  Her  pity  was  sad  and  beautiful  and  at 
the  same  time  it  appeased  her  pain. 

In  the  morning  Priscilla  told  her  about  her  illness. 
The  doctors  didn't  understand  it.  She  ought  to 
have  had  a  stroke  and  she  hadn't  had  one.  There 
was  no  reason  why  she  shouldn't  walk  except  that 
she  couldn't.  It  seemed  to  give  her  pleasure  to  go 
over  it,  from  her  first  turning  round  and  round  in 
the  street  (with  helpless,  shaking  laughter  at  the 
queerness  of  it),  to  the  moment  when  Robin  bought 
her  the  wheel  chair.  .  Robin.  .  Robin  . 


Harriett  Frean  55 

"I  minded  most  because  of  Robin.  It's  such  an 
awfid  illness,  Hatty.  I  can't  move  when  I'm  in  bed. 
Robin  has  to  get  up  and  turn  me  a  dozen  times  in 
one  night.  .  .  .  Robin's  a  perfect  saint.  He  does 
everything  for  me."  Prissie's  voice  and  her  face 
softened  and  thickened  with  voluptuous  content. 

".  .  .  Do  you  know,  Hatty,  I  had  a  little  baby. 
It  died  the  day  it  was  born.  .  .  .  Perhaps  some  day 
I  shall  have  another." 

Harriett  was  aware  of  a  sudden  tightening  of  her 
heart,  of  a  creeping  depression  that  weighed  on  her 
brain  and  worried  it.  She  thought  this  was  her 
pity  for  Priscilla. 

Her  third  night.  All  evening  Robin  had  been 
moody  and  morose.  He  would  hardly  speak  to 
either  Harriett  or  Priscilla.  When  Priscilla  asked 
him  to  do  anything  for  her  he  got  up  heavily,  pull- 
ing himself  together  with  a  sigh,  with  a  look  of 
weary,  irritated  patience. 

Prissie  wheeled  herself  out  of  the  study  into  the 
drawing-room,  beckoning  Harriett  to  follow.  She 
had  the  air  of  saving  Robin  from  Harriett,  of  inti- 


56  Harriett  Frean 

mating  that  his  grumpiness  was  Harriett's  fault. 
"He  doesn't  want  to  be  bothered,"  she  said. 

She  sat  up  till  eleven,  so  that  Robin  shouldn't  be 
thrown  with  Harriett  in  the  last  hours. 

Half  the  night  Harriett's  thoughts  ran  on,  now 
in  a  darkness,  now  in  thin  flashes  of  light.  "Sup- 
posing, after  all,  Robin  wasn't  happy?  Supposing 
he  can't  stand  it?  Supposing.  .  .  .  But  why  is  he 
angry  with  me?"  Then  a  clear  thought:  "He's 
angry  with  me  because  he  can't  be  angry  with  Pris- 
cilla."  And  clearer.  "He's  angry  with  me  because 
I  made  him  marry  her." 

She  stopped  the  running  and  meditated  with  a 
steady,  hard  deliberation.  She  thought  of  her  deep, 
spiritual  love  for  Robin;  of  Robin's  deep  spiritual 
love  for  her ;  of  his  strength  in  shouldering  his  bur- 
den. It  was  through  her  renunciation  that  he  had 
grown  so  strong,  so  pure,  so  good. 

Something  had  gone  wrong  with  Prissie.  Robin, 
coming  home  early  on  Saturday  afternoon,  had  taken 
Harriett  for  a  walk.  All  evening  and  all  through 
Sunday  it  was  Priscilla  who  sulked  and  snapped 
when  Harriett  spoke  to  her. 


Harriett  Frean  57 

On  Monday  morning  she  was  ill,  and  Robin  or- 
dered her  to  stay  in  bed.  Monday  was  Harriett's 
last  night.  Priscilla  stayed  in  bed  till  six  o'clock, 
when  she  heard  Robin  come  in ;  then  she  insisted  on 
being  dressed  and  carried  downstairs.  Harriett 
heard  her  calling  to  Robin,  and  Robin  saying,  "I 
told  you  you  weren't  to  get  up  till  to-morrow,"  and 
a  sound  like  Prissie  crying. 

At  dinner  she  shook  and  jerked  and  spilt  things 
worse  than  ever.     Robin  gloomed  at  her.     "You 
know  you  ought  to  be  in  bed.    You'll  go  at  nine." 
"If  I  go,  you'll  go.    You've  got  a  headache." 
"I  should  think  I  had,  sitting  in  this  furnace." 
The  heat  of  the  dining  room  oppressed  him,  but 
they  sat  on  there  after  dinner  because  Prissie  loved 
the  heat.     Robin's  pale,  blank  face  had  a  sick  look, 
a  deadly  smoothness.     He  had  to  lie  down  on  the 
sofa  in  the  window. 

When  the  clock  struck  nine  he  sighed  and  got  up, 
dragging  himself  as  if  the  weight  of  his  body  was 
more  than  he  could  bear.  He  stooped  over  Prissie, 
and  lifted  her. 

"Robin — you  can't.    You're  dropping  to  pieces." 
"I'm  all  right."    He  heaved  her  up  with  one  tre- 


58  Harriett  Frean 

mendous,  irritated  effort,  and  carried  her  upstairs, 
fast,  as  if  he  wanted  to  be  done  with  it.  Through 
the  open  doors  Harriett  could  hear  Prissie's  plead- 
ing whine,  and  Robin's  voice,  hard  and  controlled. 
Presently  he  came  back  to  her  and  they  went  into 
his  study.  They  could  breathe  there,  he  said. 

They  sat  without  speaking  for  a  little  time.  The 
silence  of  Prissie's  room  overhead  came  between 
them. 

Robin  spoke  first.  "I'm  afraid  it  hasn't  been  very 
gay  for  you  with  poor  Prissie  in  this  state." 

"Poor  Prissie?    She's  very  happy,  Robin." 

He  stared  at  her.  His  eyes,  round  and  full  and 
steady,  taxed  her  with  falsehood,  with  hypocrisy. 

"You  don't  suppose  I'm  not,  do  you?" 

"No."  There  was  a  movement  in  her  throat  as 
though  she  swallowed  something  hard.  "No.  I 
want  you  to  be  happy." 

"You  don't.  You  want  me  to  be  rather  miser- 
able." 

"Robin!"  She  contrived  a  sound  like  laughter. 
But  Robin  didn't  laugh ;  his  eyes,  morose  and  cynical, 
held  her  there. 


Harriett  Frean  59 

"That's  what  you  want.  ...  At  least  I  hope  you 
do.  If  you  didn't "  . 

She  fenced  off  the  danger.  "Do  you  want  me  to 
be  miserable,  then?" 

At  that  he  laughed  out.  "No.  I  don't.  I  don't 
care  how  happy  you  are." 

She  took  the  pain  of  it:  the  pain  he  meant  to  give 
her. 

That  evening  he  hung  over  Priscilla  with  a  delib- 
erate, exaggerated  tenderness. 

"Dear.  .  .  .  Dearest.  ..."  He  spoke  the  words 
to  Priscilla,  but  he  sent  out  his  voice  to  Harriett. 
She  could  feel  its  false  precision,  its  intention,  its 
repulse  of  her. 

She  was  glad  to  be  gone. 


VII 

EIGHTEEN  SEVENTY-NINE:  it  was  the  year  her 
father  lost  his  money.  Harriett  was  nearly  thirty- 
five. 

She  remembered  the  day,  late  in  November,  when 
they  heard  him  coming  home  from  the  office  early. 
Her  mother  raised  her  head  and  said,  "That's 
your  father,  Harriett.  He  must  be  ill."  She 
always  thought  of  seventy-nine  as  one  continuous 
November. 

Her  father  and  mother  were  alone  in  the  study 
for  a  long  time;  she  remembered  Annie  going  in 
with  the  lamp  and  coming  out  and  whispering 
that  they  wanted  her.  She  found  them  sitting 
in  the  lamplight  alone,  close  together,  holding  each 
other's  hands;  their  faces  had  a  strange,  exalted 
look. 

"Harriett,  my  dear,  I've  lost  every  shilling  I  pos- 
sessed, and  here's  your  mother  saying  she  doesn't 

mind." 

60 


Harriett  Frean  61 

He  began  to  explain  in  his  quiet  voice.  "When 
all  the  creditors  are  paid  in  full  there'll  be  nothing 
but  your  mother's  two  hundred  a  year.  And  the  in- 
surance money  when  I'm  gone." 

"Oh,  Papa,  how  terrible " 

"Yes,  Hatty." 

"I  mean  the  insurance.  It's  gambling  with  your 
life." 

"My  dear,  if  that  was  all  I'd  gambled  with " 

It  seemed  that  half  his  capital  had  gone  in  what 
he  called  "the  higher  mathematics  of  the  game." 
The  creditors  would  get  the  rest. 

"We  shall  be  no  worse  off,"  her  mother  said, 
"than  we  were  when  we  began.  We  were  very 
happy  then." 

"We.    How  about  Harriett?" 

"Harriett  isn't  going  to  mind." 

"You're  not — going — to  mind.  .  .  .  We  shall 
have  to  sell  this  house  and  live  in  a  smaller  one. 
And  I  can't  take  my  business  up  again." 

"My  dear,  I'm  glad  and  thankful  you've  done 
with  that  dreadful,  dangerous  game." 

"I'd  no  business  to  play  it.  ...  But,  after  hold- 


62  Harriett  Frean 

ing  myself  in  all  those  years,  there  was  a  sort  of 
fascination." 

One  of  the  creditors,  Mr.  Hichens,  gave  him  work 
in  his  office.  He  was  now  Mr.  Hichens's  clerk.  He 
went  to  Mr.  Hichens  as  he  had  gone  to  his  own  great 
business,  upright  and  alert,  handsome  in  his  dark- 
gray  overcoat  with  the  black  velvet  collar,  faintly 
amused  at  himself.  You  would  never  have  known 
that  anything  had  happened. 

Strange  that  at  the  same  time  Mr.  Hancock 
should  have  lost  money,  a  great  deal  of  money,  more 
money  than  Papa.  He  seemed  determined  that 
everybody  should  know  it;  you  couldn't  pass  him  in 
the  road  without  knowing.  He  met  you  with  his 
swollen,  red  face  hanging;  ashamed  and  miserable, 
and  angry  as  if  it  had  been  your  fault. 

One  day  Harriett  came  in  to  her  father  and 
mother  with  the  news.  "Did  you  know  that  Mr. 
•Hancock's  sold  his  horses?  And  he's  going  to  give 
up  the  house." 

Her  mother  signed  to  her  to  be  silent,  frowning 
and  shaking  her  head  and  glancing  at  her  father. 
He  got  up  suddenly  and  left  the  room. 


Harriett  Frean  63 

"He's  worrying  himself  to  death  about  Mr.  Han- 
cock," she  said. 

"I  didn't  know  he  cared  for  him  like  that, 
Mamma." 

"Oh,  well,  he's  known  him  thirty  years,  and  it's 
a  very  dreadful  thing  he  should  have  to  give  up  his 
house." 

"It's  not  worse  for  him  than  it  is  for  Papa." 

"It's  ever  so  much  worse.  He  isn't  like  your 
father.  He  can't  be  happy  without  his  big  house  and 
his  carriages  and  horses.  He'll  feel  so  small  and 
unimportant." 

"Well,  then,  it  serves  him  right." 

"Don't  say  that.  It  is  what  he  cares  for  and  he's 
lost  it." 

"He's  no  business  to  behave  as  if  it  was  Papa's 
fault,"  said  Harriett.  She  had  no  patience  with  the 
odious  little  man.  She  thought  of  her  father's  face, 
her  father's  body,  straight  and  calm,  and  his  soul 
so  far  above  that  mean  trouble  of  Mr.  Hancock's, 
that  vulgar  shame. 

Yet  inside  him  he  fretted.  And,  suddenly,  he  be- 
gan to  sink.  He  turned  faint  after  the  least  exer- 
tion and  had  to  leave  off  going  to  Mr.  Hichens. 


64  Harriett  Frean 

And  by  the  spring  of  eighteen  eighty  he  was  up- 
stairs in  his  room,  too  ill  to  be  moved.  That  was 
just  after  Mr.  Hichens  had  bought  the  house  and 
wanted  to  come  into  it.  He  lay,  patient,  in  the  big 
white  bed,  smiling  his  faint,  amused  smile  when  he 
thought  of  Mr.  Hichens. 

It  was  awful  to  Harriett  that  her  father  should 
be  ill,  lying  there  at  their  mercy.  She  couldn't  gel 
over  her  sense  of  his  parenthood,  his  authority. 
When  he  was  obstinate,  and  insisted  on  exerting 
himself,  she  gave  in.  She  was  a  bad  nurse,  because 
she  couldn't  set  herself  against  his  will.  And  when 
she  had  him  under  her  hands  to  strip  and  wash  him, 
she  felt  that  she  was  doing  something  outrageous 
and  impious;  she  set  about  it  with  a  flaming 
face  and  fumbling  hands.  "Your  mother  does  it 
better,"  he  said  gently.  But  she  could  not  get  her 
mother's  feeling  of  him  as  a  helpless,  dependent 
thing. 

Mr.  Hichens  called  every  week  to  inquire.  "Poor 
man,  he  wants  to  know  when  he  can  have  his  house. 
Why  will  he  always  come  on  my  good  days?  He 
isn't  giving  himself  a  chance." 


Harriett  Frean  65 

He  still  had  good  days,  days  when  he  could  be 
helped  out  of  bed  to  sit  in  his  chair.  "This  sort  of 
game  may  go  on  for  ever,"  he  said.  He  began  to 
worry  seriously  about  keeping  Mr.  Hichens  out  of 
his  house.  "It  isn't  decent  of  me.  It  isn't  decent." 

Harriett  was  ill  with  the  strain  of  it.  She  had  to 
go  away  for  a  fortnight  with  Lizzie  Pierce,  and 
Sarah  Barmby  stayed  with  her  mother.  Mrs. 
Barmby  had  died  the  year  before.  When  Har- 
riett got  back  her  father  was  making  plans  for  his 
removal. 

"Why  have  you  all  made  up  your  minds  that  it'll 
kill  me  to  remove  me  ?  It  won't.  The  men  can  take 
everything  out  but  me  and  my  bed  and  that  chair. 
And  when  they've  got  all  the  things  into  the  other 
house  they  can  come  back  for  the  chair  and  me. 
And  I  can  sit  in  the  chair  while  they're  bringing  the 
bed.  It's  quite  simple.  It  only  wants  a  little 
system." 

Then,  while  they  wondered  whether  they  might 
risk  it,  he  got  worse.  He  lay  propped  up,  rigid,  his 
arms  stretched  out  by  his  side,  afraid  to  lift  a  hand 
because  of  the  violent  movements  of  his  heart.  His 


66  Harriett  Frean 

face  had  a  patient,  expectant  look,  as  if  he  waited  for 
them  to  do  something. 

They  couldn't  do  anything.  There  would  be  no 
more  rallies.  He  might  die  any  day  now,  the  doctor 
said. 

"He  may  die  any  minute.  I  certainly  don't  ex- 
pect him  to  live  through  the  night." 

Harriett  followed  her  mother  back  into  the  room. 
He  was  sitting  up  in  his  attitude  of  rigid  expec- 
tancy; no  movement  but  the  quivering  of  his  night- 
shirt above  his  heart. 

"The  doctor's  been  gone  a  long  time,  hasn't  he  ?" 
he  said. 

Harriett  was  silent.  She  didn't  understand.  Her 
mother  was  looking  at  her  with  a  serene  comprehen- 
sion and  compassion. 

"Poor  Hatty,"  he  said,  "she  can't  tell  a  lie  to  save 
my  life." 

"Oh— Papa " 

He  smiled  as  if  he  was  thinking  of  something  that 
amused  him. 

"You  should  consider  other  people,  my  dear.    Not 


Harriett  Frean  67 

just  your  own  selfish  feelings.  .  .  .  You  ought  to 
write  and  tell  Mr.  Hichens." 

Her  mother  gave  a  short  sobbing  laugh.  "Oh, 
you  darling,'*  she  said. 

He  lay  still.  Then  suddenly  he  began  pressing 
hard  on  the  mattress  with  both  hands,  bracing  him- 
self up  in  the  bed.  Her  mother  leaned  closer 
towards  him.  He  threw  himself  over  slantways,  and 
with  his  head  bent  as  if  it  was  broken,  dropped  into 
her  arms. 

Harriett  wondered  why  he  was  making  that  queer 
grating  and  coughing  noise.  Three  times. 

Her  mother  called  softly  to  her — "Harriett." 

She  began  to  tremble. 


VIII 

HER  mother  had  some  secret  that  she  couldn't 
share.  She  was  wonderful  in  her  pure,  high  seren- 
ity. Surely  she  had  some  secret.  She  said  he  was 
closer  to  her  now  than  he  had  ever  been.  And  in  her 
correct,  precise  answers  to  the  letters  of  condolence 
Harriett  wrote :  "I  feel  that  he  is  closer  to  us  now 
than  he  ever  was."  But  she  didn't  really  feel  it. 
She  only  felt  that  to  feel  it  was  the  beautiful  and 
proper  thing.  She  looked  for  her  mother's  secret 
and  couldn't  find  it. 

Meanwhile  Mr.  Hichens  had  given  them  six 
weeks.  They  had  to  decide  where  they  would  go: 
into  Devonshire  or  into  a  cottage  at  Hampstead 
where  Sarah  Barmby  lived  now. 

Her  mother  said,  "Do  you  think  you'd  like  to 
live  in  Sidmouth,  near  Aunt  Harriett?" 

They  had  stayed  one  summer  at  Sidmouth  with 
Aunt  Harriett.  She  remembered  the  red  cliffs,  the 
sea,  and  Aunt  Harriett's  garden  stuffed  with  flowers. 

68 


Harriett  Frean  69 

They  had  been  happy  there.  She  thought  she  would 
love  that :  the  sea  and  the  red  cliffs  and  a  garden  like 
Aunt  Harriett's. 

But  she  was  not  sure  whether  it  was  what  her 
mother  really  wanted.  Mamma  would  never  say. 
She  would  have  to  find  out  somehow. 

"Well-^what  do  you  think?" 

"It  would  be  leaving  all  your  friends,  Hatty." 

"My  friends — yes.    But " 

Lizzie  and  Sarah  and  Connie  Pennefather.  She 
could  live  without  them.  "Oh,  there's  Mrs.  Han- 
cock." 

"Well "  Her  mother's  voice  suggested  that 

if  she  were  put  to  it  she  could  live  without  Mrs. 
Hancock. 

And  Harriett  thought:  She  does  want  to  go  to 
Sidmouth  then. 

"It  would  be  very  nice  to  be  near  Aunt  Harriett." 

She  was  afraid  to  say  more  than  that  lest  she 
should  show  her  own  wish  before  she  knew  her 
mother's. 

"Aunt  Harriett.  Yes.  .  .  .  But  it's  very  far 
away,  Hatty.  We  should  be  cut  off  from  everything. 


70  Harriett  Frean 

Lectures  and  concerts.  We  couldn't  afford  to  come 
up  and  down." 

"No.    We  couldn't." 

She  could  see  that  Mamma  did  not  really  want 
to  live  in  Sidmouth;  she  didn't  want  to  be  near 
Aunt  Harriett ;  she  wanted  the  cottage  at  Hamp- 
stead  and  all  the  things  of  their  familiar,  intellectual 
life  going  on  and  on.  After  all,  that  was  the  way  to 
keep  near  to  Papa,  to  go  on  doing  the  things  they 
had  done  together. 

Her  mother  agreed  that  it  was  the  way. 

"I  can't  help  feeling,"  Harriett  said,  "it's  what 
he  would  have  wished." 

Her  mother's  face  was  quiet  and  content.  She 
hadn't  guessed. 

They  left  the  white  house  with  the  green  balcony 
hung  out  like  a  birdcage  at  the  side,  and  turned  into 
the  cottage  at  Hampstead.  The  rooms  were  small 
and  rather  dark,  and  the  furniture  they  had  brought 
had  a  squeezed-up,  unhappy  look.  The  blue  egg  on 
the  marble-topped  table  was  conspicuous  and  hateful 
as  it  had  never  been  in  the  Black's  Lane  drawing- 
room.  Harriett  and  her  mother  looked  at  it. 


Harriett  Frean  71 

"Must  it  stay  there?" 

"I  think  so.    Fanny  Hancock  gave  it  me." 

"Mamma — you  know  you  don't  like  it." 

"No.  But  after  all  these  years  I  couldn't  turn 
the  poor  thing  away." 

Her  mother  was  an  old  woman,  clinging  with  an 
old,  stubborn  fidelity  to  the  little  things  of  her  past. 
But  Harriett  denied  it.  "She's  not  old,"  she  said  to 
herself.  "Not  really  old." 

"Harriett,"  her  mother  said  one  day.  "I  think  you 
ought  to  do  the  housekeeping." 

"Oh,  Mamma,  why?"  She  hated  the  idea  of  this 
change. 

"Because  you'll  have  to  do  it  some  day." 

She  obeyed.  But  as  she  went  her  rounds  and  gave 
her  orders  she  felt  that  she  was  doing  something  not 
quite  real,  playing  at  being  her  mother  as  she  had 
played  when  she  was  a  child.  Then  her  mother  had 
another  thought. 

"Harriett,  I  think  you  ought  to  see  more  of  your 
friends,  dear." 

"Why?" 

"Because  you'll  want  them  after  I'm  gone." 

"I  shall  never  want  anybody  but  you." 


72  Harriett  Frean 

And  their  time  went  as  it  had  gone  before  :  in  sew- 
ing together,  reading  together,  listening  to  lectures 
and  concerts  together.  They  had  told  Sarah  that 
they  didn't  want  anybody  to  call.  They  were  Hilton 
Frean's  wife  and  daughter.  "After  our  wonderful 
life  with  him,"  they  said,  "you'll  understand,  Sarah, 
that  we  don't  want  people."  And  if  Harriett  was 
introduced  to  any  stranger  she  accounted  for  herself 
arrogantly:  "My  father  was  Hilton  Frean." 

They  were  collecting  his  Remains  for  publication. 

Months  passed,  years  passed,  going  each  one  a 
little  quicker  than  the  last.  And  Harriett  was  thirty- 
nine. 

One  evening,  coming  out  of  church,  her  mother 
fainted.  That  was  the  beginning  of  her  illness, 
February,  eighteen  eighty-three.  First  came  the  long 
months  of  weakness;  then  the  months  and  months 
of  sickness;  then  the  pain;  the  pain  she  had  been 
hiding,  that  she  couldn't  hide  any  more. 

They  knew  what  it  was  now:  that  horrible  thing 
that  even  the  doctors  were  afraid  to  name.  They 
called  it  "something  malignant."  When  the  friends 


Harriett  Frean  73 

• — Mrs.  Hancock,  Connie  Penne father,  Lizzie,  and 
Sarah — called  to  inquire,  Harriett  wouldn't  tell 
them  what  it  was;  she  pretended  that  she  didn't 
know,  that  the  doctors  weren't  sure;  she  covered  it 
up  from  them  as  if  it  had  been  a  secret  shame.  And 
they  pretended  that  they  didn't  know.  But  they 
knew. 

They  were  talking  now  about  ah  operation.  There 
was  one  chance  for  her  in  a  hundred  if  they  had  Sir 
James  Pargeter:  one  chance.  She  might  die  of  it; 
she  might  die  under  the  anaesthetic;  she  might  die 
of  shock;  she  was  so  old  and  weak.  Still,  there 
was  that  one  chance,  if  only  she  would  take  it. 

But  her  mother  wouldn't  listen.  "My  dear,  it 
would  cost  a  hundred  pounds." 

"How  do  you  know  what  it  would  cost?" 

"Oh,"  she  said,  "I  know."  She  was  smiling  above 
the  sheet  that  was  tucked  close  up,  tight  under  her 
chin,  shutting  it  all  down. 

Sir  James  Pargeter  would  cost  a  hundred  pounds. 
Harriett  couldn't  lay  her  hands  on  the  money  or  on 
half  of  it  or  a  quarter.  "That  doesn't  matter  if  they 
think  it'll  save  you." 


74  Harriett  Frean 

"They  think;  they  think.     But  I  know.     I  know 
better  than  all  the  doctors." 
"But  Mamma,  darling " 


She  urged  the  operation.  Just  because  it  would 
be  so  difficult  to  raise  the  hundred  pounds  she  urged 
it.  She  wanted  to  feel  that  she  had  done  everything 
that  could  be  done,  that  she  had  let  nothing  stand  in 
the  way,  that  she  had  shrunk  from  no  sacrifice.  One 
chance  in  a  hundred.  What  was  a  hundred  pounds 
weighed  against  that  one  chance?  If  it  had  been 
one  in  a  thousand  she  would  have  said  the  same. 

"It  would  be  no  good,  Hatty.  I  know  it  wouldn't. 
They  just  love  to  try  experiments,  those  doctors. 
They're  dying  to  get  their  knives  into  me.  Don't 
let  them." 

Gradually,  day  by  day,  Harriett  weakened.  Her 
mother's  frightened  voice  tore  at  her,  broke  her 
down.  Supposing  she  really  died  under  the  opera- 
tion? Supposing It  was  cruel  to  excite  and 

upset  her  just  for  that;  it  made  the  pain  worse. 

Either  the  operation  or  the  pain,  going  on  and  on, 
stabbing  with  sharper  and  sharper  knives;  cutting 
in  deeper;  all  their  care,  the  antiseptics,  the  restora- 


Harriett  Frean  75 

tives,  dragging  it  out,  giving  it  more  time  to  torture 
her. 

When  the  three  friends  came,  Harriett  said,  "I 
shall  be  glad  and  thankful  when  it's  all  over.  I 
couldn't  want  to  keep  her  with  me,  just  for  this." 

Yet  she  did  want  it.  She  was  thankful  every 
morning  that  she  came  to  her  mother's  bed  and 
found  her  alive,  lying  there,  looking  at  her  with  her 
wonderful  smile.  She  was  glad  because  she  still 
had  her. 

And  now  they  were  giving  her  morphia.  Under 
the  torpor  of  the  drug  her  face  changed;  the  mus- 
cles loosened,  the  flesh  sagged,  the  widened,  swollen 
mouth  hung  open;  only  the  broad  beautiful  fore- 
head, the  beautiful  calm  eyebrows  were  the  same; 
the  face,  sallow  white,  half  imbecile,  was  a  mask 
flung  aside.  She  couldn't  bear  to  look  at  it;  it 
wasn't  her  mother's  face;  her  mother  had  died  al- 
ready under  the  morphia.  She  had  a  shock  every 
time  she  came  in  and  found  it  still  there. 

On  the  day  her  mother  died  she  told  herself  she 
was  glad  and  thankful.  She  met  her  friends  with  a 
little  quiet,  composed  face,  saying,  "I'm  glad  and 


76  Harriett  Frean 

thankful  she's  at  peace."  But  she  wasn't  thankful; 
she  wasn't  glad.  She  wanted  her  back  again.  And 
she  reproached  herself,  one  minute  for  having  been 
glad,  and  the  next  for  wanting  her. 

She  consoled  herself  by  thinking  of  the  sacrifices 
she  had  made,  how  she  had  given  up  Sidmouth,  and 
how  willingly  she  would  have  paid  the  hundred 
pounds. 

"I  sometimes  think,  Hatty,"  said  Mrs.  Hancock, 
melancholy  and  condoling,  "that  it  would  have  been 
very  different  if  your  poor  mother  could  have  had 
her  wish." 

"What— what  wish?" 

"Her  wish  to  live  in  Sidmouth,  near  your  Aunt 
Harriett." 

And  Sarah  Barmby,  sympathizing  heavily,  stop- 
ping short  and  brooding,  trying  to  think  of  some- 
thing to  say :  "If  the  operation  had  only  been  done 
three  years  ago  when  they  knew  it  would  save 
her " 

"Three  years  ago?  But  we  didn't  know  anything 
about  it  then." 


Harriett  Frean  77 

"She  did.  .  .  .  Don't  you  remember?  It  was 
when  I  stayed  with  her.  .  .  .  Oh,  Hatty,  didn't  she 
tell  you?" 

"She  never  said  a  word." 

"Oh,  well,  she  wouldn't  hear  of  it,  even  then  when 
they  didn't  give  her  two  years  to  live." 

Three  years  ?  She  had  had  it  three  years  ago.  She 
had  known  about  it  all  that  time.  Three  years  ago 
the  operation  would  have  saved  her ;  she  would  have 
been  here  now.  Why  had  she  refused  it  when  she 
knew  it  would  save  her  ? 

She  had  been  thinking  of  the  hundred  pounds. 

To  have  known  about  it  three  years  and  said  noth- 
ing— to  have  gone  believing  she  hadn't  two  years 
to  live 

That  was  her  secret.  That  was  why  she  had  been 
so  calm  when  Papa  died.  She  had  known  she  would 
have  him  again  so  soon.  Not  two  years 

"If  I'd  been  them,"  Lizzie  was  saying,  "I'd  have 
bitten  my  tongue  out  before  I  told  you.  It's  no  use 
worrying,  Hatty.  You  did  everything  that  could  be 
done." 

"I  know.    I  know." 


78  Harriett  Frean 

She  held  up  her  face  against  them ;  but  to  herself 
she  said  that  everything  had  not  been  done.  Her 
mother  had  never  had  her  wish.  And  she  had  died 
in  agony,  so  that  she,  Harriett,  might  keep  her  hun- 
dred pounds. 


IX 

IN  all  her  previsions  of  the  event  she  had  seen  her- 
self surviving  as  the  same  Harriett  Frean  with  the 
addition  of  an  overwhelming  grief.  She  was  horri- 
fied at  this  image  of  herself  persisting  beside  her 
mother's  place  empty  in  space  and  time. 

But  she  was  not  there.  Through  her  absorption 
in  her  mother,  some  large,  essential  part  of  herself 
had  gone.  It  had  not  been  so  when  her  father  died ; 
what  he  had  absorbed  was  given  back  to  her,  trans- 
ferred to  her  mother.  All  her  memories  of  her 
mother  were  joined  to  the  memory  of  this  now  irre- 
coverable self. 

She  tried  to  reinstate  herself  through  grief;  she 
sheltered  behind  her  bereavement,  affecting  a  more 
profound  seclusion,  abhorring  strangers;  she  was 
more  than  ever  the  reserved,  fastidious  daughter  of 
Hilton  Frean.  She  had  always  thought  of  herself 
as  different  from  Connie  and  Sarah,  living  with  a 

superior,  intellectual  life.     She  turned  to  the  books 

79 


8o  Harriett  Frean 

she  had  read  with  her  mother,  Dante,  Browning, 
Carlyle,  and  Ruskin,  the  biographies  of  Great  Men, 
trying  to  retrace  the  footsteps  of  her  lost  self,  to  re- 
vive the  forgotten  thrill.  But  it  was  no  use.  One 
day  she  found  herself  reading  the  Dedication  of 
The  Ring  and  the  Book  over  and  over  again,  with- 
out taking  in  its  meaning,  without  any  remem- 
brance of  its  poignant  secret.  "  'And  all  a  wonder 
and  a  wild  desire' — Mamma  loved  that."  She 
thought  she  loved  it  too ;  but  what  she  loved  was  the 
dark-green  book  she  had  seen  in  her  mother's  long, 
white  hands,  and  the  sound  of  her  mother's  voice 
reading.  She  had  followed  her  mother's  mind  with 
strained  attention  and  anxiety,  smiling  when  she 
smiled,  but  with  no  delight  and  no  admiration  of  her 
own. 

If  only  she  could  have  remembered.  It  was  only 
through  memory  that  she  could  reinstate  herself. 

She  had  a  horror  of  the  empty  house.  Her 
friends  advised  her  to  leave  it,  but  she  had  a  horror 
of  removal,  of  change.  She  loved  the  rooms  that 
had  held  her  mother,  the  chair  she  had  sat  on,  the 
white,  fluted  cup  she  had  drunk  from  in  her  illness. 
She  clung  to  the  image  of  her  mother;  and  always 


Harriett  Frean  81 

beside  it,  shadowy  and  pathetic,  she  discerned  the 
image  of  her  lost  self. 

When  the  horror  of  emptiness  came  over  her,  she 
dressed  herself  in  her  black,  with  delicate  care  and 
precision,  and  visited  her  friends.  Even  in  moments 
of  no  intention  she  would  find  herself  knocking  at 
Lizzie's  door  or  Sarah's  or  Connie  Pennefather's. 
If  they  were  not  in  she  would  call  again  and  again, 
till  she  found  them.  She  would  sit  for  hours,  talk- 
ing, spinning  out  the  time. 

She  began  to  look  forward  to  these  visits. 

Wonderful.  The  sweet  peas  she  had  planted  had 
come  up. 

Hitherto  Harriett  had  looked  on  the  house  and 
garden  as  parts  of  the  space  that  contained  her  with- 
out belonging  to  her.  She  had  had  no  sense  of  pos- 
session. This  morning  she  was  arrested  by  the 
thought  that  the  plot  she  had  planted  was  hers.  The 
house  and  garden  were  hers.  She  began  to  take  an 
interest  in  them.  She  found  that  by  a  system  of 
punctual  movements  she  could  give  to  her  existence 
the  reasonable  appearance  of  an  aim. 

Next  spring,  a  year  after  her  mother's  death,  she 


82  Harriett  Frean 

felt  the  vague  stirring  of  her  individual  soul.  She 
was  free  to  choose  her  own  vicar;  she  left  her 
mother's  Dr.  Braithwaite,  who  was  broad  and  twice 
married,  and  went  to  Canon  Wrench,  who  was  un- 
married and  high.  There  was  something  stimulat- 
ing in  the  short,  happy  service,  the  rich  music,  the 
incense,  and  the  processions.  She  made  new  covers 
for  the  drawing-room,  in  cretonne,  a  gay  pattern 
of  pomegranate  and  blue-green  leaves.  And  as  she 
had  always  had  the  cutlets  broiled  plain  because  her 
mother  liked  them  that  way,  now  she  had  them 
breaded. 

And  Mrs.  Hancock  wanted  to  know  why  Harriett 
had  forsaken  her  dear  mother's  church;  and  when 
Connie  Penne father  saw  the  covers  she  told  Har- 
riett she  was  lucky  to  be  able  to  afford  new  cretonne. 
It  was  more  than  she  could;  she  seemed  to  think 
Harriett  had  no  business  to  afford  it.  As  for  the 
breaded  cutlets,  Hannah  opened  her  eyes  and  said, 
"That  was  how  the  mistress  always  had  them, 
ma'am,  when  you  was  away." 

One  day  she  took  the  blue  egg  out  of  the  drawing- 
room  and  stuck  it  on  the  chimney-piece  in  the  spare 


Harriett  Frean  83 

room.  When  she  remembered  how  she  used  to  love 
it  she  felt  that  she  had  done  something  cruel  and 
iniquitous,  but  necessary  to  the  soul. 

She  was  taking  out  novels  from  the  circulating 
library  now.  Not,  she  explained,  for  her  serious 
reading.  Her  serious  reading,  her  Dante,  her 
Browning,  her  Great  Man,  lay  always  on  the  table 
ready  to  her  hand  (beside  a  copy  of  The  Social 
Order  and  the  Remains  of  Hilton  Frean)  while 
secretly  and  half -ashamed  she  played  with  some 
frivolous  tale.  She  was  satisfied  with  anything  that 
ended  happily  and  had  nothing  in  it  that  was  un- 
pleasant, or  difficult,  demanding  thought.  She  ex- 
alted her  preferences  into  high  canons.  A  novel 
ought  to  conform  to  her  requirements.  A  novelist 
(she  thought  of  him  with  some  asperity)  had  no 
right  to  be  obscure,  or  depressing,  or  to  add  need- 
less unpleasantness  to  the  unpleasantness  that  had 
to  be.  The  Great  Men  didn't  do  it. 

She  spoke  of  George  Eliot  and  Dickens  and  Mr. 
Thackeray. 

Lizzie  Pierce  had  a  provoking  way  of  smiling  at 


84    -  Harriett  Frean 

Harriett,  as  if  she  found  her  ridiculous.  And  Har- 
riett had  no  patience  with  Lizzie's  affectation  in 
wanting  to  be  modern,  her  vanity  in  trying  to  be 
young,  her  middle-aged  raptures  over  the  work — 
often  unpleasant — of  writers  too  young  to  be  worth 
serious  consideration.  They  had  long  arguments  in 
which  Harriett,  beaten,  retired  behind  The  Social 
Order  and  the  Remains. 

"It's  silly,"  Lizzie  said,  "not  to  be  able  to  look  at 
a  new  thing  because  it's  new.  That's  the  way  you 
grow  old." 

"It's  sillier,"  Harriett  said,  "to  be  always  running 
after  new  things  because  you  think  that's  the  way 
to  look  young.  I've  no  wish  to  appear  younger 
than  I  am." 

"I've  no  wish  to  appear  suffering  from  senile 
decay." 

"There  is  a  standard."  Harriett  lifted  her  obsti- 
nate and  arrogant  chin.  "You  forget  that  I'm 
Hilton  Frean's  daughter." 

"I'm  William  Pierce's,  but  that  hasn't  prevented 
my  being  myself." 

Lizzie's   mind  had  grown  keener   in  her  sharp 


Harriett  Frean  85 

middle  age.  As  it  played  about  her,  Harriett  cow- 
ered; it  was  like  being  exposed,  naked,  to  a  cutting 
wind.  Her  mind  ran  back  to  her  father  and  mother, 
longing,  like  a  child,  for  their  shelter  and  support, 
for  the  blessed  assurance  of  herself. 

At  her  worst  she  could  still  think  with  pleasure  of 
the  beauty  of  the  act  which  had  given  Robin  to 
Priscilla.  • 


"Mv  dear  Harriett :  Thank  you  for  your  kind 
letter  of  sympathy.  Although  we  had  expected  the 
end  for  many  weeks  poor  Prissie's  death  came  to 
us  as  a  great  shock.  But  for  her  it  was  a  blessed 
release,  and  we  can  only  be  thankful.  You  who 
knew  her  will  realize  the  depth  and  extent  of  my 
bereavement.  I  have  lost  the  dearest  and  most  lov- 
ing wife  man  ever  had.  .  .  ." 

Poor  little  Prissie.  She  couldn't  bear  to  think 
she  would  never  see  her  again. 

Six  months  later  Robin  wrote  again,  from  Sid- 
mouth. 

"Dear  Harriett:  Priscilla  left  you  this  locket  in 
her  will  as  a  remembrance.  I  would  have  sent  it 
before  but  that  I  couldn't  bear  to  part  with  her 

things  all  at  once. 

86 


Harriett  Frean  87 

"I  take  this  opportunity  of  telling  you  that  I  am 
going  to  be  married  again " 

Her  heart  heaved  and  closed.  She  could  never 
have  believed  she  could  have  felt  such  a  pang. 

"The  lady  is  Miss  Beatrice  Walker,  the  devoted 
nurse  who  was  with  my  dear  wife  all  through  her 
last  illness.  This  step  may  seem  strange  and  precipi- 
tate, coming  so  soon  after  her  death ;  but  I  am  urged 
to  do  it  by  the  precarious  state  of  my  own  health 
and  by  the  knowledge  that  we  are  fulfilling  poor 
Prissie's  dying  wish.  .  .  ." 

Poor  Prissie's  dying  wish.  After  what  she  had 

done  for  Prissie,  if  she  had  a  dying  wish But 

neither  of  them  had  thought  of  her.  Robin  had  for- 
gotten her.  .  .  .  Forgotten.  .  .  .  Forgotten. 

But  no.  Priscilla  had  remembered.  She  had  left 
her  the  locket  with  his  hair  in  it.  She  had  remem- 
bered and  she  had  been  afraid ;  jealous  of  her.  She 
couldn't  bear  to  think  that  Robin  might  marry  her, 
even  after  she  was  dead.  She  had  made  him  marry 
this  Walker  woman  so  that  he  shouldn't 

Oh,  but  he  wouldn't.    Not  after  twenty  years. 

"I  didn't  really  think  he  would." 


88  Harriett  Frean 

She  was  forty-five,  her  face  was  lined  and  pitted 
and  her  hair  was  dust  color,  streaked  with  gray: 
and  she  could  only  think  of  Robin  as  she  had  last 
seen  him,  young:  a  young  face;  a  young  body; 
young,  shining  eyes.  He  would  want  to  marry  a 
young  woman.  He  had  been  in  love  with  this 
Walker  woman,  and  Prissie  had  known  it.  She 
could  see  Prissie  lying  in  her  bed,  helpless,  looking 
at  them  over  the  edge  of  the  white  sheet.  She  had 
known  that  as  soon  as  she  was  dead,  before  the  sods 
closed  over  her  grave,  they  would  marry.  Nothing 
could  stop  them.  And  she  had  tried  to  make  herself 
believe  it  was  her  wish,  her  doing,  not  theirs.  Poor 
little  Prissie. 

She  understood  that  Robin  had  been  staying  in 
Sidmouth  for  his  health. 

A  year  later,  Harriett,  run  down,  was  ordered  to 
the  seaside.  She  went  to  Sidmouth.  She  told  her- 
self that  she  wanted  to  see  the  place  where  she  had 
been  so  happy  with  her  mother,  where  poor  Aunt 
Harriett  had  died. 

Looking  through  the  local  paper  she  found  in  the 
list  of  residents:  Sidcote — Mr.  and  Mrs.  Robert 


Harriett  Frean  89 

Lethbridge  and  Miss  Walker.  She  wrote  to  Robin 
and  asked  if  she  might  call  on  his  wife. 

A  mile  of  hot  road  through  the  town  and  inland 
brought  her  to  a  door  in  a  lane  and  a  thatched  cot- 
tage with  a  little  lawn  behind  it.  From  the  door- 
step she  could  see  two  figures,  a  man  and  a  woman, 
lying  back  in  garden  chairs.  Inside  the  house  she 
heard  the  persistent,  energetic  sound  of  hammering. 
The  woman  got  up  and  came  to  her.  She  was 
young,  pink- faced  and  golden-haired,  and  she  said 
she  was  Miss  Walker,  Mrs.  Lethbridge's  sister. 

A  tall,  lean,  gray  man  rose  from  the  garden  chair, 
slowly,  dragging  himself  with  an  invalid  air.  His 
eyes  stared,  groping,  blurred  films  that  trembled  be- 
tween the  pouch  and  droop  of  the  lids;  long 
cheeks,  deep  grooved,  dropped  to  the  infirm  mouth 
that  sagged  under  the  limp  mustache.  That  was 
Robin. 

He  became  agitated  when  he  saw  her.  "Poor 
Robin,"  she  thought.  "All  these  years,  and  it's  too 
much  for  him,  seeing  me."  Presently  he  dragged 
himself  from  the  lawn  to  the  house  and  disappeared 
through  the  French  window  where  the  hammering 
came  from. 


90  Harriett  Frean 

"Have  I  frightened  him  away?"  she  said. 

"Oh,  no,  he's  always  like  that  when  he  sees  strange 
faces." 

"My  face  isn't  exactly  strange." 

"Well,  he  must  have  thought  it  was." 

A  sudden  chill  crept  through  her. 

"He'll  be  all  right  when  he  gets  used  to  you," 
Miss  Walker  said. 

The  strange  face  of  Miss  Walker  chilled  her.  A 
strange  young  woman,  living  close  to  Robin,  pro- 
tecting him,  explaining  Robin's  ways. 

The  sound  of  hammering  ceased.  Through  the 
long,  open  window  she  saw  a  woman  rise  up  from 
the  floor  and  shed  a  white  apron.  She  came  down 
the  lawn  to  them,  with  raised  arms,  patting  dis- 
ordered hair ;  large,  a  full,  firm  figure  clipped  in  blue 
linen.  A  full-blown  face,  bluish  pink;  thick  gray 
eyes  slightly  protruding;  a  thick  mouth,  solid  and 
firm  and  kind.  That  was  Robin's  wife.  Her  sister 
was  slighter,  fresher,  a  good  ten  years  younger, 
Harriett  thought. 

"Excuse  me,  we're  only  just  settling  in.  I  was 
nailing  down  the  carpet  in  Robin's  study." 


Harriett  Frean  91 

Her  lips  were  so  thick  that  they  moved  stiffly 
when  she  spoke  or  smiled.  She  panted  a  little  as  if 
from  extreme  exertion. 

When  they  were  all  seated  Mrs.  Lethbridge  ad- 
dressed her  sister.  "Robin  was  quite  right.  It  looks 
much  better  turned  the  other  way." 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  he  made  you  take  it  all  up 
and  put  it  down  again?  Well " 

"What's  the  use?  .  .  .  Miss  Frean,  you  don't 
know  what  it  is  to  have  a  husband  who  will  have 
things  just  so." 

"She  had  to  mow  the  lawn  this  morning  because 
Robin  can't  bear  to  see  one  blade  of  grass  higher 
than  another." 

"Is  he  as  particular  as  all  that?" 

"I  assure  you,  Miss  Frean,  he  is,"  Miss  Walker 
informed  her. 

"He  wasn't  when  I  knew  him,"  Harriett  said. 

"Ah — my  sister  spoils  him." 

Mrs.  Lethbridge  wondered  why  he  hadn't  come 
out  again. 

"I  think,"  Harriett  said,  "perhaps  he'll  come  if 
I  go." 


92  Harriett  Frean 

"Oh,  you  mustn't  go.  It's  good  for  him  to  see 
people.  Takes  him  out  of  himself." 

"He'll  turn  up  all  right,"  Miss  Walker  said, 
"when  he  hears  the  teacups." 

And  at  four  o'clock  when  the  teacups  came,  Robin 
turned  up,  dragging  himself  slowly  from  the  house 
to  the  lawn.  He  blinked  and  quivered  with  agita- 
tion ;  Harriett  saw  he  was  annoyed,  not  with  her,  and 
not  with  Miss  Walker,  but  with  his  wife. 

"Beatrice,  what  have  you  done  with  my  new 
bottle  of  medicine?" 

"Nothing,  dear." 

"You've  done  nothing,  when  you  know  you 
poured  out  my  last  dose  at  twelve?" 

"Why,  hasn't  it  come?" 

"No.    It  hasn't." 

"But  Cissy  ordered  it  this  morning." 

"I  didn't,"  Cissy  said.    "I  forgot." 

"Oh,  Cissy " 

"You  needn't  blame  Cissy.  You  ought  to  have 
seen  to  it  yourself.  .  .  .  She  was  a  good  nurse, 
Harriett,  before  she  was  my  wife." 

"My  dear,  your  nurse  had  nothing  else  to  do. 
Your  wife  has  to  clean  and  mend  for  you,  and  cook 


Harriett  Frean  93 

your  dinner  and  mow  the  lawn  and  nail  the  carpets 
down."  While  she  said  it  she  looked  at  Robin  as 
if  she  adored  him. 

All  through  tea  time  he  talked  about  his  health 
and  about  the  sanitary  dustbin  they  hadn't  got. 
Something  had  happened  to  him.  It  wasn't  like  him 
to  be  wrapped  up  in  himself  and  to  talk  about  dust- 
bins. He  spoke  to  his  wife  as  if  she  had  been  his 
valet.  He  didn't  see  that  she  was  perspiring,  worn 
out  by  her  struggle  with  the  carpet. 

"Just  go  and  fetch  me  another  cushion,  Beatrice." 

She  rose  with  tired  patience. 

"You  might  let  her  have  her  tea  in  peace,"  Miss 
Walker  said,  but  she  was  gone  before  they  could 
stop  her. 

When  Harriett  left  she  went  with  her  to  the 
garden  gate,  panting  as  she  walked.  Harriett  noticed 
pale,  blurred  lines  on  the  edges  of  her  lips.  She 
thought:  She  isn't  a  bit  strong.  She  praised  the 
garden. 

Mrs.  Lethbridge  smiled.  "Robin  loves  it.  ... 
But  you  should  have  seen  it  at  five  o'clock  this 
morning." 

"Five  o'clock?" 


94  Harriett  Frean 

"Yes.  I  always  get  up  at  five  to  make  Robin  a 
cup  of  tea." 

Harriett's  last  evening.  She  was  dining  at  Sid- 
cote.  On  her  way  there  she  had  overtaken  Robin's 
wife  wheeling  Robin  in  a  bath  chair.  Beatrice  had 
panted  and  perspired  and  had  made  mute  signs  to 
Harriett  not  to  take  any  notice.  She  had  had  to  go 
and  lie  down  till  Robin  sent  for  her  to  find  his  ciga- 
rette case.  Now  she  was  in  the  kitchen  cooking 
Robin's  part  of  the  dinner  while  he  lay  down  in  his 
study.  Harriett  talked  to  Miss  Walker  in  the 
garden. 

"It's  been  very  kind  of  you  to  have  us  so 
much." 

"Oh,  but  we've  loved  having  you.  It's  so  good 
for  Beatie.  Gives  her  a  rest  from  Robin.  ...  I 
don't  mean  that  she  wants  a  rest.  But,  you  see, 
she's  not  well.  She  looks  a  big,  strong,  bouncing 
thing,  but  she  isn't.  Her  heart's  weak.  She  oughtn't 
to  be  doing  what  she  does." 

"Doesn't  Robin  see  it?" 

"He  doesn't  see  anything.  He  never  knows  when 
she's  tired  or  got  a  headache.  She'll  drop  dead  be- 


Harriett  Frean  95 

fore  he'll  see  it.  He's  utterly  selfish,  Miss  Frean. 
Wrapt  up  in  himself  and  his  horrid  little  ailments. 
Whatever  happens  to  Beatie  he  must  have  his  sweet- 
bread, and  his  soup  at  eleven  and  his  tea  at  five  in 
the  morning.  .  .  . 

".   .   .1  suppose  you  think  I  might  help  more?" 

"Well "  Harriett  did  think  it. 

"Well,  I  just  won't.  I  won't  encourage  Robin. 
He  ought  to  get  her  a  proper  servant  and  a  man  for 
the  garden  and  the  bath  chair.  I  wish  you'd  give 
him  a  hint.  Tell  him  she  isn't  strong.  I  can't.  She'd 
snap  my  head  off.  Would  you  mind  ?" 

Harriett  didn't  mind.  She  didn't  mind  what  she 
said.  She  wouldn't  be  saying  it  to  Robin,  but  to 
the  contemptible  thing  that  had  taken  Robin's  place. 
She  still  saw  Robin  as  a  young  man,  with  young, 
shining  eyes,  who  came  rushing  to  give  himself  up 
at  once,  to  make  himself  known.  She  had  no  affec- 
tion for  this  selfish  invalid,  this  weak,  peevish  bully. 

Poor  Beatrice.  She  was  sorry  for  Beatrice.  She 
resented  his  behavior  to  Beatrice.  She  told  her- 
self she  wouldn't  be  Beatrice,  she  wouldn't  be 
Robin's  wife  for  the  world.  Her  pity  for  Beatrice 
gave  her  a  secret  pleasure  and  satisfaction. 


96  Harriett  Frean 

After  dinner  she  sat  out  in  the  garden  talking  to 
Robin's  wife,  while  Cissy  Walker  played  draughts 
with  Robin  in  his  study,  giving  Beatrice  a  rest  from 
him.  They  talked  about  Robin. 

"You  knew  him  when  he  was  young,  didn't  you? 
What  was  he  like  ?" 

She  didn't  want  to  tell  her.  She  wanted  to  keep 
the  young,  shining  Robin  to  herself.  She  also 
wanted  to  show  that  she  had  known  him,  that  she 
had  known  a  Robin  that  Beatrice  would  never  know. 
Therefore  she  told  her. 

"My  poor  Robin."  Beatrice  gazed  wistfully,  try- 
ing to  see  this  Robin  that  Priscilla  had  taken  from 
her,  that  Harriett  had  known.  Then  she  turned  her 
back. 

"It  doesn't  matter.  I've  married  the  man  I 
wanted."  She  let  herself  go.  "Cissy  says  I've 
spoiled  him.  That  isn't  true.  It  was  his  first  wife 
who  spoiled  him.  She  made  a  nervous  wreck  of 
him." 

"He  was  devoted  to  her." 

"Yes.  And  he's  paying  for  his  devotion  now. 
She  wore  him  out.  .  .  .  Cissy  says  he's  selfish.  If 
he  is,  it's  because  he's  used  up  all  his  unselfishness. 


Harriett  Frean  97 

He  was  living  on  his  moral  capital.  ...  I  feel  as 
if  I  couldn't  do  too  much  for  him  after  what  he  did. 
Cissy  doesn't  know  how  awful  his  life  was  with 
Priscilla.  She  was  the  most  exacting " 

"She  was  my  friend." 

"Wasn't  Robin  your  friend,  too?" 

"Yes.    But  poor  Prissie,  she  was  paralyzed." 

"It  wasn't  paralysis." 

"What  was  it  then?" 

"Pure  hysteria.  Robin  wasn't  in  love  with  her, 
and  she  knew  it.  She  developed  that  illness  so 
that  she  might  have  a  hold  on  him,  get  his  atten- 
tion fastened  on  her  somehow.  I  don't  say  she 
could  help  it.  She  couldn't.  But  that's  what  it 
was." 

"Well,  she  died  of  it." 

"No.  She  died  of  pneumonia  after  influenza. 
I'm  not  blaming  Prissie.  She  was  pitiable.  But  he 
ought  never  to  have  married  her." 

"I  don't  think  you  ought  to  say  that." 

"You  know  what  he  was,"  said  Robin's  wife. 
"And  look  at  him  now." 

But  Harriett's  mind  refused,  obstinately,  to  con- 
nect the  two  Robins  and  Priscilla. 


98  Harriett  Frean 

She  remembered  that  she  had  to  speak  to  Robin. 
They  went  together  into  his  study.  Cissy  sent  her 
a  look,  a  signal,  and  rose ;  she  stood  by  the  doorway. 

"Beatie,  you  might  come  here  a  minute." 

Harriett  was  alone  with  Robin. 

"Well,  Harriett,  we  haven't  been  able  to  do  much 
for  you.  In  my  beastly  state " 

"You'll  get  better." 

"Never.  I'm  done  for,  Harriett.  I  don't  com- 
plain." 

"You've  got  a  devoted  wife,  Robin." 

"Yes.     Poor  girl,  she  does  what  she  can." 

"She  does  too  much." 

"My  dear  woman,  she  wouldn't  be  happy  if  she 
didn't." 

"It  isn't  good  for  her.  Does  it  never  strike  you 
that  she's  not  strong?" 

"Not  strong?  She's — she's  almost  indecently 
robust.  What  wouldn't  I  give  to  have  her  strength !" 

She  looked  at  him,  at  the  lean  figure  sunk  in  the 
armchair,  at  the  dragged,  infirm  face,  the  blurred, 
owlish  eyes,  the  expression  of  abject  self-pity,  of 
self -absorption. 


Harriett  Frean  99 

That  was  Robin. 

The  awful  thing  was  that  she  couldn't  love  him, 
couldn't  go  on  being  faithful.  This  injured  her 
self-esteem. 


XI 

HER  old  servant,  Hannah,  had  gone,  and  her  new 
servant,  Maggie,  had  had  a  baby. 

After  the  first  shock  and  three  months'  loss  of 
Maggie,  it  occurred  to  Harriett  that  the  beautiful 
thing  would  be  to  take  Maggie  back  and  let  her 
have  the  baby  with  her,  since  she  couldn't  leave  it. 

The  baby  lay  in  his  cradle  in  the  kitchen,  black- 
eyed  and  rosy,  doubling  up  his  fat,  naked  knees, 
smiling  his  crooked  smile,  and  saying  things  to  him- 
self. Harriett  had  to  see  him  every  time  she  came 
into  the  kitchen.  Sometimes  she  heard  him  cry,  an 
intolerable  cry,  tearing  the  nerves  and  heart.  And 
sometimes  she  saw  Maggie  unbutton  her  black  gown 
in  a  hurry  and  put  out  her  white,  rose-pointed  breast 
to  still  his  cry. 

Harriett  couldn't  bear  it.     She  could  not  bear  it. 

She  decided  that  Maggie  must  go.  Maggie  was 
not  doing  her  work  properly.  Harriett  found  flue 

under  the  bed. 

100 


Harriett  Frean  101 

"I'm  sure,"  Maggie  said,  "I'm  doing  no  worse 
than  I  did,  ma'am,  and  you  usedn't  to  complain." 

"No  worse  isn't  good  enough,  Maggie.  I  think 
you  might  have  tried  to  please  me.  It  isn't  every  one 
who  would  have  taken  you  in  the  circumstances." 

"If  you  think  that,  ma'am,  it's  very  cruel  and 
unkind  of  you  to  send  me  away." 

"You've  only  yourself  to  thank.  There's  no  more 
to  be  said." 

"No,  ma'am.  I  understand  why  I'm  leaving.  It's 
because  of  Baby.  You  don't  want  to  'ave  'im,  and 
I  think  you  might  have  said  so  before." 

That  day  month  Maggie  packed  her  brown- 
painted  wooden  box  and  the  cradle  and  the  peram- 
bulator. The  greengrocer  took  them  away  on  a 
handcart.  Through  the  drawing-room  window  Har- 
riett saw  Maggie  going  away,  carrying  the  baby, 
pink  and  round  in  his  white-knitted  cap,  his  fat  hips 
bulging  over  her  arm  under  his  white  shawl.  The 
gate  fell  to  behind  them.  The  click  struck  at  Har- 
riett's heart. 

Three  months  later  Maggie  turned  up  again  in 
a  black  hat  and  gown  for  best,  red-eyed  and  humble. 


IO2  Harriett  Frean 

"I  came  to  see,  ma'am,  whether  you'd  take  me 
back,  as  I  'aven't  got  Baby  now." 

"You  haven't  got  him  ?" 

"  'E  died,  ma'am,  last  month.  I'd  put  him  with 
a  woman  in  the  country.  She  was  highly  recom- 
mended to  me.  Very  highly  recommended  she  was, 
and  I  paid  her  six  shillings  a  week.  But  I  think 
she  must  'ave  done  something  she  shouldn't." 

"Oh,  Maggie,  you  don't  mean  she  was  cruel  to 
him?"  . 

"No,  ma'am.  She  was  very  fond  of  him.  Every- 
body was  fond  of  Baby.  But  whether  it  was  the 
food  she  gave  him  or  what,  'e  was  that  wasted  you 
wouldn't  have  known  him.  You  remember  what 
he  was  like  when  he  was  here." 

"I  remember." 

She  remembered.  She  remembered.  Fat  and 
round  in  his  white  shawl  and  knitted  cap  when 
Maggie  carried  him  down  the  garden  path. 

"I  should  think  she'd  a  done  something,  shouldn't 
you,  ma'am?" 

She  thought:  No.  No.  It  was  I  who  did  it 
when  I  sent  him  away. 


Harriett  Frean  103 

"I  don't  know,  Maggie.  I'm  afraid  it's  been  very 
terrible  for  you." 

"Yes,  ma'am.  ...  I  wondered  whether  you'd 
give  me  another  trial,  ma'am." 

"Are  you  quite  sure  you  want  to  come  to  me, 
Maggie  ?" 

"Yes'm.  .  .  .  I'm  sure  you'd  a  kept  him  if  you 
could  have  borne  to  see  him  about." 

"You  know,  Maggie,  that  was  not  the  reason  why 
you  left.  If  I  take  you  back  you  must  try  not  to  be 
careless  and  forgetful." 

"I  shan't  'ave  nothing  to  make  me.  Before,  it 
was  first  Baby's  father  and  then  'im." 

She  could  see  that  Maggie  didn't  hold  her  respon- 
sible. After  all,  why  should  she?  If  Maggie  had 
made  bad  arrangements  for  her  baby,  Maggie  was 
responsible. 

She  went  round  to  Lizzie  and  Sarah  to  see  what 
they  thought.  Sarah  thought:  Well — it  was  rather 
a  difficult  question,  and  Harriett  resented  her  hesi- 
tation. 

"Not  at  all.  It  rested  with  Maggie  to  go  or  stay. 
If  she  was  incompetent  I  wasn't  bound  to  keep  her 


IO4  Harriett  Frean 

just  because  she'd  had  a  baby.  At  that  rate  I  should 
have  been  completely  in  her  power." 

Lizzie  said  she  thought  Maggie's  baby  would  have 
died  in  any  case,  and  they  both  hoped  that  Harriett 
wasn't  going  to  be  morbid  about  it. 

Harriett  felt  sustained.  She  wasn't  going  to  be 
morbid.  All  the  same,  the  episode  left  her  with  a 
feeling  of  insecurity. 


XII 

THE  young  girl,  Robin's  niece,  had  come  again, 
bright-eyed,  eager,  and  hungry,  grateful  for  Sunday 
supper. 

Harriett  was  getting  used  to  these  appearances, 
spread  over  three  years,  since  Robin's  wife  had 
asked  her  to  be  kind  to  Mona  Floyd.  Mona  had 
come  this  time  to  tell  her  of  her  engagement  to 
Geoffrey  Carter.  The  news  shocked  Harriett 
intensely. 

"But,  my  dear,  you  told  me  he  was  going  to  marry 
your  little  friend,  Amy — Amy  Lambert.  What  does 
Amy  say  to  it?" 

"What  can  she  say?  I  know  it's  a  bit  rough  on 
her " 

"You  know ;  and  yet  you'll  take  your  happiness  at 
the  poor  child's  expense." 

"We've  got  to.    We  can't  do  anything  else." 

"Oh,  my  dear "  If  she  could  stop  it  ... 

An  inspiration  came.  "I  knew  a  girl  once  who 

105 


io6  Harriett  Frean 

might  have  done  what  you're  doing,  only  she 
wouldn't.  She  gave  the  man  up  rather  than  hurt 
her  friend.  She  couldn't  do  anything  else." 

"How  much  was  he  in  love  with  her?" 

"I  don't  know  how  much.    He  was  never  in  love 
with  any  other  woman." 

"Then  she  was  a  fool.    A  silly  fool.     Didn't  she 
think  of  him?" 

"Didn't  she  think!" 

"Xo.     She  didn't.     She  thought  of  herself.     Of 
her  own  moral  beauty.    She  was  a  selfish  fool." 

"She  asked  the  best  and  wrisest  man  she  knew, 
and  he  told  her  she  couldn't  do  anything  else." 

"The  best  and  wisest  man — oh,  Lord!" 

"That  was  my  own  father,  Mona,  Hilton  Frean." 

"Then  it  was  you.     You  and  Uncle  Robin  and 
Aunt  Prissie." 

Harriett's    face    smiled   its   straight,   thin-lipped 
smile,  the  worn,  grooved  chin  arrogantly  lifted. 

"How  could  you?" 

"I  could  because  I  was  brought  up  not  to  think 
of  myself  before  other  people." 

"Then  it  wasn't  even  your  own  idea.    You  sacri- 
ficed him  to  somebody  else's.    You  made  three  peo- 


Harriett  Frean  107 

pie  miserable  just  for  that.  Four,  if  you  count  Aunt 
Beatie." 

"There  was  Prissie.    I  did  it  for  her." 

"What  did  you  do  for  her?  You  insulted  Aunt 
Prissie." 

"Insulted  her?    My  dear  Mona!" 

"It  was  an  insult,  handing  her  over  to  a  man  who 
couldn't  love  her  even  with  his  body.  Aunt  Prissie 
was  the  miserablest  of  the  lot.  Do  you  suppose  he 
didn't  take  it  out  of  her?" 

"He  never  let  her  know." 

"Oh,  didn't  he !  She  knew  all  right.  That's  how 
she  got  her  illness.  And  it's  how  he  got  his.  And 
he'll  kill  Aunt  Beatie.  He's  taking  it  out  of  her 
now.  Look  at  the  awful  suffering.  And  you  can 
go  on  sentimentalizing  about  it." 

The  young  girl  rose,  flinging  her  scarf  over  her 
shoulders  with  a  violent  gesture. 

"There's  no  common  sense  in  it." 

"No  common  sense,  perhaps." 

"It's  a  jolly  sight  better  than  sentiment  when  it 
comes  to  marrying." 

They  kissed.     Mona  turned  at  the  doorway. 

"I  say — did  he  go  on  caring  for  you  ?" 


io8  Harriett  Frean 

"Sometimes  I  think  he  did.  Sometimes  I  think 
he  hated  me." 

"Of  course  he  hated  you,  after  what  you'd  let 
him  in  for."  She  paused.  "You  don't  mind  my 
telling  you  the  truth,  do  you?" 

.  .  .  Harriett  sat  a  long  time,  her  hands  folded 
on  her  lap,  her  eyes  staring  into  the  room,  trying  to 
see  the  truth.  She  saw  the  girl,  Robin's  niece,  in 
her  young  indignation,  her  tender  brilliance  suddenly 
hard,  suddenly  cruel,  flashing  out  the  truth.  Was  it 
true  that  she  had  sacrificed  Robin  and  Priscilla  and 
Beatrice  to  her  parents'  idea  of  moral  beauty?  Was 
it  true  that  this  idea  had  been  all  wrong?  That  she 
might  have  married  Robin  and  been  happy  and  been 
right? 

"I  don't  care.  If  it  was  to  be  done  again  to- 
morrow I'd  do  it." 

But  the  beauty  of  that  unique  act  no  longer  ap- 
peared to  her  as  it  once  was,  uplifting,  consoling, 
incorruptible. 

The  years  passed.  They  went  with  an  incredible 
rapidity,  and  Harriett  was  now  fifty. 


Harriett  Frean  109 

The  feeling  of  insecurity  had  grown  on  her.  It 
had  something  to  do  with  Mona,  with  Maggie  and 
Maggie's  baby.  She  had  no  clear  illumination,  only 
a  mournful  acquiescence  in  her  own  futility,  an  al- 
most physical  sense  of  shrinkage,  the  crumbling 
away,  bit  by  bit,  of  her  beautiful  and  honorable 
self,  dying  with  the  objects  of  its  three  profound 
affections :  her  father,  her  mother,  Robin.  Gradu- 
ally the  image  of  the  middle-aged  Robin  had  effaced 
his  youth. 

She  read  more  and  more  novels  from  the  circulat- 
ing libraries,  of  a  kind  demanding  less  arid  less  effort 
of  attention.  And  always  her  inability  to  concen- 
trate appeared  to  her  as  a  just  demand  for  clarity : 
"The  man  has  no  business  to  write  so  that  I  can't 
understand  him." 

She  laid  in  a  weekly  stock  of  opinions  from  The 
Spectator,  and  by  this  means  contrived  a  semblance 
of  intellectual  life. 

She  was  appeased  more  and  more  by  the  rhythm 
of  the  seasons,  of  the  weeks,  of  day  and  night,  by 
the  first  coming  up  of  the  pink  and  wine-brown 
velvet  primulas,  by  the  pungent,  burnt  smell  of  her 


no  Harriett  Frean 

morning  coffee,  the  smell  of  a  midday  stew,  of  hot 
cakes  baking  for  tea  time;  by  the  lighting  of  the 
lamp,  the  lighting  of  autumn  fires,  the  round  of  her 
visits.  She  waited  with  a  strained,  expectant  desire 
for  the  moment  when  it  would  be  time  to  see  Lizzie 
or  Sarah  or  Connie  Ferine  father  again. 

Seeing  them  was  a  habit  she  couldn't  get  over. 
But  it  no  longer  gave  her  keen  pleasure.  She  told 
herself  that  her  three  friends  were  deteriorating  in 
their  middle  age.  Lizzie's  sharp  face  darted  malice ; 
her  tongue  was  whipcord ;  she  knew  where  to  flick ; 
the  small  gleam  of  her  eyes,  the  snap  of  her  nut- 
cracker jaws  irritated  Harriett.  Sarah  was  slow; 
slow.  She  took  no  care  of  her  face  and  figure.  As 
Lizzie  put  it,  Sarah's  appearance  was  an  outrage 
on  her  contemporaries.  "She  makes  us  feel  so  old." 

And  Connie — the  very  rucking  of  Connie's  coat 
about  her  broad  hips  irritated  Harriett.  She  had  a 
way  of  staring  over  her  fat  cheeks  at  Harriett's  old 
suits,  mistaking  them  for  new  ones,  and  saying  the 
same  exasperating  thing.  "You're  lucky  to  be  able 
to  afford  it.  /  can't." 

Harriett's  irritation  mounted  up  and  up. 


Harriett  Frean  in 

And  one  day  she  quarreled  with  Connie. 
Connie  had  been  telling  one  of  her  stories;  lean- 
ing a  little  sideways,  her  skirt  stretched  tight  be- 
tween her  fat,  parted  knees,  the  broad  roll  of  her 
smile  sliding  greasily.  She  had  "grown  out  of  it" 
in  her  young  womanhood,  and  now  in  her  middle 
age  she  had  come  back  to  it  again.  She  was  just 
like  her  father. 

"Connie,  how  can  you  be  so  coarse?" 
"I  beg  pardon.     I  forgot  you  were  always  better 
than  everybody  else." 

"I'm  not  better  than  everybody  else.  I've  only  been 
brought  up  better  than  some  people.  My  father  would 
have  died  rather  than  have  told  a  story  like  that." 
"I  suppose  that's  a  dig  at  my  parents." 
"I  never  said  anything  about  your  parents." 
"I  know  the  things  you  think  about  my  father." 
"Well — I  daresay  he  thinks  things  about  me." 
"He  thinks  you  were  always  an  incurable   old 
maid,  my  dear." 

"Did  he  think  my  father  was  an  old  maid?" 
"I  never  heard  him  say  one  unkind  word  about 
your  father." 


U2  Harriett  Frean 

"I  should  hope  not,  indeed." 

"Unkind  things  were  said.  Not  by  him.  Though 
he  might  have  been  forgiven " 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean.  But  all  my  father's 
creditors  were  paid  in  full.  You  know  that." 

"I  didn't  know  it." 

"You  know  it  now.  Was  your  father  one  of 
them?" 

"No.  It  was  as  bad  for  him  as  if  he  had  been, 
though." 

"How  do  you  make  that  out?" 

"Well,  my  dear,  if  he  hadn't  taken  your  father's 
advice  he  might  have  been  a  rich  man  now  instead 
of  a  poor  one.  .  .  .  He  invested  all  his  money  as 
he  told  him." 

"In  my  father's  things?" 

"In  things  he  was  interested  in.    And  he  lost  it." 

"It  shows  how  he  must  have  trusted  him." 

"He  wasn't  the  only  one  who  was  ruined  by  his 
trust." 

Harriett  blinked.  Her  mind  swerved  from  the 
blow.  "I  think  you  must  be  mistaken,"  she  said. 

"I'm  less  likely  to  be  mistaken  than  you,  my  dear, 
though  he  was  your  father." 


Harriett  Frean  113 

Harriett  sat  up,  straight  and  stiff.  "Well,  your 
father's  alive,  and  he's  dead." 

"I  don't  see  what  that  has  to  do  with  it." 

"Don't  you?  If  it  had  happened  the  other  way 
about,  your  father  wouldn't  have  died." 

Connie  stared  stupidly  at  Harriett,  not  taking  it 
in.  Presently  she  got  up  and  left  her.  She  moved 
clumsily,  her  broad  hips  shaking. 

Harriett  put  on  her  hat  and  went  round  to  Lizzie 
and  Sarah  in  turn.  They  would  know  whether  it 
were  true  or  not.  They  would  know  whether  Mr. 
Hancock  had  been  ruined  by  his  own  fault  or  Papa's. 

Sarah  was  sorry.  She  picked  up  a  fold  of  her 
skirt  and  crumpled  it  in  her  ringers,  and  said  over 
and  over  again,  "She  oughtn't  to  have  told  you." 
But  she  didn't  say  it  wasn't  true.  Neither  did  Lizzie, 
though  her  tongue  was  a  whip  for  Connie. 

"Because  you  can't  stand  her  dirty  stories  she 
goes  and  tells  you  this.  It  shows  what  Connie  is." 

It  showed  her  father  as  he  was,  too.  Not  wise. 
Not  wise  all  the  time.  Courageous,  always,  loving 
danger,  intolerant  of  security,  wild  under  all  his 
quietness  and  gentleness,  taking  madder  and  madder 
risks,  playing  his  game  with  an  awful,  cool  reckless- 


H4  Harriett  Frean 

ness.  Then  letting  other  people  in;  ruining  Mr. 
Hancock,  the  little  man  he  used  to  laugh  at.  And 
it  had  killed  him.  He  hadn't  been  sorry  for  Mamma, 
because  he  knew  she  was  glad  the  mad  game  was 
over;  but  he  had  thought  and  thought  about  him, 
the  little  dirty  man,  until  he  had  died  of  thinking. 


XIII 

NEW  people  had  come  to  the  house  next  door. 
Harriett  saw  a  pretty  girl  going  in  and  out.  She  had 
not  called;  she  was  not  going  to  call.  Their  cat 
came  over  the  garden  wall  and  bit  off  the  blades  of 
the  irises.  When  he  sat  down  on  the  mignonette 
Harriett  sent  a  note  round  by  Maggie :  "Miss  Frean 
presents  her  compliments  to  the  lady  next  door  and 
would  be  glad  if  she  would  restrain  her  cat." 

Five  minutes  later  the  pretty  girl  appeared  with 
the  cat  in  her  arms. 

"I've  brought  Mimi,"  she  said.  "I  want  you  to 
see  what  a  darling  he  is." 

Mimi,  a  Persian,  all  orange  on  the  top  and  snow 
white  underneath,  climbed  her  breast  to  hang  flat- 
tened out  against  her  shoulder,  long,  the  great 
plume  of  his  tail  fanning  her.  She  swung  round 
to  show  the  innocence  of  his  amber  eyes  and  the 
pink  arch  of  his  mouth  supporting  his  pink  nose. 

"I  want  you  to  see  my  mignonette,"  said  Har- 
"5 


n6  Harriett  Frean 

riett.  They  stood  together  by  the  crushed  ring 
where  Mimi  had  made  his  bed. 

The  pretty  girl  said  she  was  sorry.  "But,  you 
see,  we  can't  restrain  him.  I  don't  know  what's  to 
be  done.  .  .  .  Unless  you  kept  a  cat  yourself;  then 
you  won't  mind." 

"But,"  Harriett  said,  "I  don't  like  cats." 

"Oh,  why  not?" 

Harriett  knew  why.  A  cat  was  a  compromise,  a 
substitute,  a  subterfuge.  Her  pride  couldn't  stoop. 
She  was  afraid  of  Mimi,  of  his  enchanting  play,  and 
the  soft  white  fur  of  his  stomach.  Maggie's  baby. 
So  she  said,  "Because  they  destroy  the  beds.  And 
they  kill  birds." 

The  pretty  girl's  chin  burrowed  in  Mimi's  neck. 
"You  won't  throw  stones  at  him?"  she  said. 

"No,  I  wouldn't  hurt  him.  .  .  .  What  did  you 
say  his  name  was?" 

"Mimi." 

Harriett  softened.  She  remembered.  "When  I 
was  a  little  girl  I  had  a  cat  called  Mimi.  White 
Angora.  Very  handsome.  And  your  name  is " 

"Brails ford.    I'm  Dorothy." 


Harriett  Frean  117 

Next  time,  when  Mimi  jumped  on  the  lupins  and 
broke  them  down,  Dorothy  came  again  and  said 
she  was  sorry.  And  she  stayed  to  tea.  Harriett 
revealed  herself. 

"My  father  was  Hilton  Frean."  She  had  noticed 
for  the  last  fifteen  years  that  people  showed  no  in- 
terest when  she  told  them  that.  They  even  stared  as 
though  she  had  said  something  that  had  no  sense 
in  it.  Dorothy  said,  "How  nice." 

"Nicer 

"I  mean  it  must  have  been  nice  to  have  him  for 
your  father.  .  .  .  You  don't  mind  my  coming  into 
your  garden  last  thing  to  catch  Mimi  ?" 

Harriett  felt  a  sudden  yearning  for  Dorothy.  She 
saw  a  pleasure,  a  happiness,  in  her  coming.  She 
wasn't  going  to  call,  but  she  sent  little  notes  in  to 
Dorothy  asking  her  to  come  to  tea. 

Dorothy  declined. 

But  every  evening,  towards  bedtime,  she  came 
into  the  garden  to  catch  Mimi.  Through  the  win- 
dow Harriett  could  hear  her  calling :  "Mimi !  Mimi !" 
She  could  see  her  in  her  white  frock,  moving  about, 
hovering,  ready  to  pounce  as  Mimi  dashed  from  the 


n8  Harriett  Frean 

bushes.  She  thought:  "She  walks  into  my  garden, 
as  if  it  was  her  own.  But  she  won't  make  a  friend 
of  me.  She's  young,  and  I'm  old." 

She  had  a  piece  of  wire  netting  put  up  along  the 
wall  to  keep  Mimi  out. 

"That's  the  end  of  it,"  she  said.  She  could  never 
think  of  the  young  girl  without  a  pang  of  sadness 
and  resentment. 

Fifty-five.    Sixty. 

In  her  sixty-second  year  Harriett  had  her  first 
bad  illness. 

It  was  so  like  Sarah  Barmby.  Sarah  got  influ- 
enza and  regarded  it  as  a  common  cold  and  gave  it 
to  Harriett  who  regarded  it  as  a  common  cold  and 
got  pleurisy. 

When  the  pain  was  over  she  enjoyed  her  illness,, 
the  peace  and  rest  of  lying  there,  supported  by  the 
bed,  holding  out  her  lean  arms  to  be  washed  by 
Maggie;  closing  her  eyes  in  bliss  while  Maggie 
combed  and  brushed  and  plaited  her  fine  gray  hair. 
She  liked  having  the  same  food  at  the  same  hours. 
She  would  look  up,  smiling  weakly,  when  Maggie 


Harriett  Frean  119 

came  at  bedtime  with  the  little  tray.  "What  have 
you  brought  me  now,  Maggie  ?" 

"Benger's  Food,  ma'am." 

She  wanted  it  to  be  always  Benger's  Food  at  bed- 
time. She  lived  by  habit,  by  the  punctual  fulfillment 
of  her  expectation.  She  loved  the  doctor's  visits  at 
twelve  o'clock,  his  air  of  brooding  absorption  in  her 
case,  his  consultations  with  Maggie,  the  seriousness 
and  sanctity  he  attached  to  the  humblest  details  of 
her  existence. 

Above  all  she  loved  the  comfort  and  protection  of 
Maggie,  the  sight  of  Maggie's  broad,  tender  face  as 
it  bent  over  her,  the  feeling  of  Maggie's  strong  arms 
as  they  supported  her,  the  hovering  pressure  of  the 
firm,  broad  body  in  the  clean  white  apron  and  the 
cap.  Her  eyes  rested  on  it  with  affection ;  she  found 
shelter  in  Maggie  as  she  had  found  it  in  her 
mother. 

One  day  she  said,  "Why  did  you  come  to  me, 
Maggie?  Couldn't  you  have  found  a  better  place?" 

"There  was  many  wanted  me.  But  I  came  to 
you,  ma'am,  because  you  seemed  to  sort  of  need  me 
most.  I  dearly  love  looking  after  people.  Old 


12O  Harriett  Frean 

ladies  and  children.  And  gentlemen,  if  they're  ill 
enough,"  Maggie  said. 

"You're  a  good  girl,  Maggie." 

She  had  forgotten.  The  image  of  Maggie's  baby 
was  dead,  hidden,  buried  deep  down  in  her  mind. 
She  closed  her  eyes.  Her  head  was  thrown  back, 
motionless,  ecstatic  under  Maggie's  flickering  fingers 
as  they  plaited  her  thin  wisps  of  hair. 

Out  of  the  peace  of  illness  she  entered  on  the 
misery  and  long  labor  of  convalescence.  The  first 
time  Maggie  left  her  to  dress  herself  she  wept.  She 
didn't  want  to  get  well.  She  could  see  nothing  in 
recovery  but  the  end  of  privilege  and  prestige,  the 
obligation  to  return  to  a  task  she  was  tired  of,  a 
difficult  and  terrifying  task. 

By  summer  she  was  up  and  (tremulously)  about 
again. 


XIV 

SHE  was  aware  of  her  drowsy,  supine  dependence 
on  Maggie.  At  first  her  perishing  self  asserted  it- 
self in  an  increased  reserve  and  arrogance.  Thus 
she  protected  herself  from  her  own  censure.  She 
had  still  a  feeling  of  satisfaction  in  her  exclusive- 
ness,  her  power  not  to  call  on  new  people. 

"I  think,"  Lizzie  Pierce  said,  "you  might  have 
called  on  the  Brails  fords." 

"Why  should  I?  I  should  have  nothing  in  com- 
mon with  such  people." 

"Well,  considering  that  Mr.  Brailsford  writes  in 
The  Spectator " 

Harriett  called.  She  put  on  her  gray  silk  and  her 
soft  white  mohair  shawl,  and  her  wide  black  hat  tied 
under  her  chin,  and  called.  It  was  on  a  Saturday. 
The  Brails  fords'  room  was  full  of  visitors,  men  and 
women,  talking  excitedly.  Dorothy  was  not  there 
— Dorothy  was  married.  Mimi  was  not  there — 
Mimi  was  dead. 

121 


122  Harriett  Frean 

Harriett  made  her  way  between  the  chairs,  dim- 
eyed,  upright,  and  stiff  in  her  white  shawl.  She 
apologized  for  having  waited  seven  years  before 
calling.  .  .  .  "Never  go  anywhere.  .  .  .  Quite  a 
recluse  since  my  father's  death.  He  was  Hilton 
Frean." 

"Yes?"  Mrs.  Brailsford's  eyes  were  sweetly 
interrogative. 

"But  as  we  are  such  near  neighbors  I  felt  that 
I  must  break  my  rule." 

Mrsj  Brailsford  smiled  in  vague  benevolence; 
yet  as  if  she  thought  that  Miss  Frean's  feeling  and 
her  action  were  unnecessary.  After  seven  years. 
And  presently  Harriett  found  herself  alone  in  her 
corner. 

She  tried  to  talk  to  Mr.  Brailsford  when  he  handed 
her  the  tea  and  bread  and  butter.  "My  father," 
she  said,  "was  connected  with  The  Spectator  for 
many  years.  He  was  Hilton  Frean." 

"Indeed?    I'm  afraid  I — don't  remember." 

She  could  get  nothing  out  of  him,  out  of  his  lean, 
ironical  face,  his  eyes  screwed  up  behind  his  glasses, 
benevolent,  amused  at  her.  She  was  nobody  in  that 
roomful  of  keen,  intellectual  people;  nobody;  noth* 


Harriett  Frean  123 

ing  but  an  unnecessary  little  old  lady  who  had  come 
there  uninvited. 

Her  second  call  was  not  returned.  She  heard  that 
the  Brailsfords  were  exclusive ;  they  wouldn't  know 
anybody  out  of  their  own  set.  Harriett  explained 
her  position  thus:  "No.  I  didn't  keep  it  up.  We 
have  nothing  in  common." 

She  was  old — old.  She  had  nothing  in  common 
with  youth,  nothing  in  common  with  middle  age, 
with  intellectual,  exclusive  people  connected  with 
The  Spectator.  She  said,  "The  Spectator  is  not  what 
it  used  to  be  in  my  father's  time." 

Harriett  Frean  was  not  what  she  used  to  be.  She 
was  aware  of  the  creeping  fret,  the  poisons  and  ob- 
structions of  decay.  It  was  as  if  she  had  parted 
with  her  own  light,  elastic  body,  and  succeeded  to 
somebody  else's  that  was  all  bone,  heavy,  stiff,  irre- 
sponsive to  her  will.  Her  brain  felt  swollen  and 
brittle,  she  had  a  feeling  of  tiredness  in  her  face, 
of  infirmity  about  her  mouth.  Her  looking-glass 
showed  her  the  fallen  yellow  skin,  the  furrowed  lines 
of  age. 

Her  head  dropped,  drowsy,  giddy  over  the  week's 


124  Harriett  Frean 

accounts.  She  gave  up  even  the  semblance  of  her 
housekeeping,  and  became  permanently  dependent 
on  Maggie.  She  was  happy  in  the  surrender  of  her 
responsibility,  of  the  grown-up  self  she  had  main- 
tained with  so  much  effort,  clinging  to  Maggie,  sub- 
mitting to  Maggie,  as  she  had  clung  and  submitted 
to  her  mother. 

Her  affection  concentrated  on  two  objects,  the 
house  and  Maggie,  Maggie  and  the  house.  The 
house  had  become  a  part  of  herself,  an  extension  of 
her  body,  a  protective  shell.  She  was  uneasy  when 
away  from  it.  The  thought  of  it  drew  her  with 
passion:  the  low  brown  wall  with  the  railing,  the 
flagged  path  from  the  little  green  gate  to  the  front 
door.  The  square  brown  front;  the  two  oblong, 
white-framed  windows,  the  dark-green  trellis  porch 
between ;  the  three  windows  above.  And  the  clipped 
privet  bush  by  the  trellis  and  the  may  tree  by  the 
gate. 

She  no  longer  enjoyed  visiting  her  friends.  She 
set  out  in  peevish  resignation,  leaving  her  house,  and 
when  she  had  sat  half  an  hour  with  Lizzie  or  Sarah 
or  Connie  she  would  begin  to  fidget,  miserable  till 
she  got  back  to  it  again ;  to  the  house  and  Maggie. 


Harriett  Frean  125 

She  was  glad  enough  when  Lizzie  came  to  her; 
she  still  liked  Lizzie  best.  They  would  sit  together, 
one  on  each  side  of  the  fireplace,  talking.  Harriett's 
voice  came  thinly  through  her  thin  lips,  precise  yet 
plaintive,  Lizzie's  finished  with  a  snap  of  the  bent-in 
jaws. 

"Do  you  remember  those  little  round  hats  we 
used  to  wear?  You  had  one  exactly  like  mine. 
Connie  couldn't  wear  them." 

"We  were  wild  young  things,"  said  Lizzie. 

"I  was  wilder  than  you.  ...  A  little  audacious 
thing." 

"And  look  at  us  now — we  couldn't  say  'Bo'  to  a 
goose.  .  .  .  Well,  we  may  be  thankful  we  haven't 
gone  stout  like  Connie  Pennefather." 

"Or  poor  Sarah.    That  stoop." 

They  drew  themselves  up.  Their  straight,  slen- 
der shoulders  rebuked  Connie's  obesity,  and  Sarah's 
bent  back,  her  bodice  stretched  hump-wise  from  the 
stuck-out  ridges  of  her  stays. 

Harriett  was  glad  when  Lizzie  went  and  left  her 
to  Maggie  and  the  house.  She  always  hoped  she 
wouldn't  stay  for  tea,  so  that  Maggie  might  not 
have  an  extra  cup  and  plate  to  wash. 


126  Harriett  Frean 

The  years  passed :  the  sixty-third,  sixty- fourth, 
sixty-fifth;  their  monotony  mitigated  by  long  spells 
of  torpor  and  the  sheer  rapidity  of  time.  Her  mind 
was  carried  on,  empty,  in  empty,  flying  time.  She 
had  a  feeling  of  dryness  and  distension  in  all  her 
being,  and  a  sort  of  crepitation  in  her  brain,  irritat- 
ing her  to  yawning  fits.  After  meals,  sitting  in  her 
armchair,  her  book  would  drop  from  her  hands  and 
her  mind  would  slip  from  drowsiness  into  stupor. 
There  was  something  voluptuous  about  the  begin- 
ning of  this  state;  she  would  give  herself  up  to  it 
with  an  animal  pleasure  and  content. 

Sometimes,  for  long  periods,  her  mind  would  go 
backwards,  returning,  always  returning,  to  the 
house  in  Black's  Lane.  She  would  see  the  row  of 
elms  and  the  white  wall  at  the  end  with  the  green 
balcony  hung  out  like  a  birdcage  above  the  green 
door.  She  would  see  herself,  a  girl  wearing  a  big 
chignon  and  a  little  round  hat ;  or  sitting  in  the  curly 
chair  with  her  feet  on  the  white  rug ;  and  her  father, 
slender  and  straight,  smiling  half-amused,  while  her 
mother  read  aloud  to  them.  Or  she  was  a  child  in 
a  black  silk  apron  going  up  Black's  Lane.  Little 


Harriett  Frean  127 

audacious  thing.  She  had  a  fondness  and  admira- 
tion for  this  child  and  her  audacity.  And  always  she 
saw  her  mother,  with  her  sweet  face  between  the 
long,  hanging  curls,  coming  down  the  garden  path, 
in  a  wide  silver-gray  gown  trimmed  with  narrow 
bands  of  black  velvet.  And  she  would  wake  up,  sur- 
prised to  find  herself  sitting  in  a  strange  room, 
dressed  in  a  gown  with  strange  sleeves  that  ended 
in  old  wrinkled  hands;  for  the  book  that  lay  in  her 
lap  was  Longfellow,  open  at  Evangeline. 

One  day  she  made  Maggie  pull  off  the  old,  washed- 
out  cretonne  covers,  exposing  the  faded  blue  rep. 
She  was  back  in  the  drawing-room  of  her  youth. 
Only  one  thing  was  missing.  She  went  upstairs  and 
took  the  blue  egg  out  of  the  spare  room  and  set  it 
in  its  place  on  the  marble-topped  table.  She  sat  gaz- 
ing at  it  a  long  time  in  happy,  child-like  satisfaction. 
The  blue  egg  gave  reality  to  her  return. 

When  she  saw  Maggie  coming  in  with  the  tea  and 
buttered  scones  she  thought  of  her  mother. 

Three  more  years.    Harriett  was  sixty-eight. 
She   had   a   faint   recollection   of   having   given 


128  Harriett  Frean 

Maggie  notice,  long  ago,  there,  in  the  dining  room. 
Maggie  had  stood  on  the  hearthrug,  in  her  large 
white  apron,  crying.  She  was  crying  now. 

She  said  she  must  leave  and  go  and  take  care  of 
her  mother.  "Mother's  getting  very  feeble  now." 

"I'm  getting  very  feeble,  too,  Maggie.  It's  cruel 
and  unkind  of  you  to  leave  me." 

"I'm  sorry,  ma'am.    I  can't  help  it." 

She  moved  about  the  room,  sniffing  and  sobbing 
as  she  dusted.  Harriett  couldn't  bear  it  any  more. 
"If  you  can't  control  yourself,"  she  said,  "go  into 
the  kitchen."  Maggie  went. 

Harriett  sat  before  the  fire  in  her  chair,  straight 
and  stiff,  making  no  sound.  Now  and  then  her  eye- 
lids shook,  fluttered  red  rims;  slow,  scanty  tears 
oozed  and  fell,  their  trail  glistening  in  the  long  fur- 
rows of  her  cheeks. 


XV 

THE  door  of  the  specialist's  house  had  shut  behind 
them  with  a  soft,  respectful  click. 

Lizzie  Pierce  and  Harriett  sat  in  the  taxicab, 
holding  each  other's  hands.  Harriett  spoke. 

"He  says  I've  got  what  Mamma  had." 

Lizzie  blinked  away  her  tears;  her  hand  loosened 
and  tightened  on  Harriett's  with  a  nervous  clutch. 

Harriett  felt  nothing  but  a  strange,  solemn  excite- 
ment and  exaltation.  She  was  raised  to  her  mother's 
eminence  in  pain.  With  every  stab  she  would  live 
again  in  her  mother.  She  had  what  her  mother  had. 

Only  she  would  have  an  operation.  This  different 
thing  was  what  she  dreaded,  the  thing  her  mother 
hadn't  had,  and  the  going  away  into  the  hospital,  to 
live  exposed  in  the  free  ward  among  other  people. 
That  was  what  she  minded  most.  That  and  leaving 
her  house,  and  Maggie's  leaving. 

She  cried  when  she  saw  Maggie  standing  at  the 

gate  in  her  white  apron  as  the  taxicab  took  her  away. 

129 


130  Harriett  Frean 

She  thought,  "When  I  come  back  again  she  won't 
be  there."  Yet  somehow  she  felt  that  it  wouldn't 
happen ;  it  was  impossible  that  she  should  come  back 
and  not  find  Maggie  there. 

She  lay  in  her  white  bed  in  the  white-curtained 
cubicle.  Lizzie  was  paying  for  the  cubicle.  Kind 
Lizzie.  Kind.  Kind. 

She  wasn't  afraid  of  the  operation.  It  would  hap- 
pen in  the  morning.  Only  one  thing  worried  her 
Something  Connie  had  told  her.  Under  the  anaes- 
thetic you  said  things.  Shocking,  indecent  things. 
But  there  wasn't  anything  she  could  say.  She  didn't 
know  anything.  .  .  .  Yes.  She  did.  There  were 
Connie's  stories.  And  Black's  Lane.  Behind  the 
dirty  blue  palings  in  Black's  Lane. 

The  nurses  comforted  her.  They  said  if  you  kept 
your  mouth  tight  shut,  up  to  the  last  minute  before 
the  operation,  if  you  didn't  say  one  word  you  were 
all  right. 

She  thought  about  it  after  she  woke  in  the  morn- 
ing. For  a  whole  hour  before  the  operation  she  re- 
fused to  speak,  nodding  and  shaking  her  head,  com- 


Harriett  Frean  131 

municating  by  gestures.  She  walked  down  the  wide 
corridor  of  the  ward  on  her  way  to  the  theatre,  very 
upright  in  her  white  flannel  dressing  gown,  with  her 
chin  held  high  and  a  look  of  exaltation  on  her  face. 
There  were  convalescents  in  the  corridor.  They  saw 
her.  The  curtains  before  some  of  the  cubicles  were 
parted;  the  patients  saw  her;  they  knew  what  she 
was  going  to.  Her  exaltation  mounted. 

She  came  into  the  theatre.  It  was  all  white. 
White.  White  tiles.  Rows  of  little  slender  knives 
on  a  glass  shelf,  under  glass,  shining.  A  white  sink 
in  the  corner.  A  mixed  smell  of  iodine  and  ether. 
The  surgeon  wore  a  white  coat.  Harriett  made  her 
tight  lips  tighter. 

She  climbed  on  to  the  white  enamel  table,  and  lay 
down,  drawing  her  dressing  gown  straight  about  her 
knees.  She  had  not  said  one  word. 

.....!•• 

She  had  behaved  beautifully. 

The  pain  in  her  body  came  up,  wave  after  wave, 
burning.  It  swelled,  tightening,  stretching  out  her 
wounded  flesh. 


132  Harriett  Frean 

She  knew  that  the  little  man  they  called  the  doctor 
was  really  Mr.  Hancock.  They  oughtn't  to  have 
let  him  in.  She  cried  out.  "Take  him  away.  Don't 
let  him  touch  me;"  but  nobody  took  any  notice. 

"It  isn't  right,"  she  said.  "He  oughtn't  to  do  it. 
Not  to  any  woman.  If  it  was  known  he  would  be 
punished." 

And  there  was  Maggie  by  the  curtain,  crying. 

"That's  Maggie.  She's  crying  because  she  thinks 
I  killed  her  baby." 

The  ice  bag  laid  across  her  body  stirred  like  a  live 
thing  as  the  ice  melted,  then  it  settled  and  was  still. 
She  put  her  hand  down  and  felt  the  smooth,  cold 
oilskin  distended  with  water. 

"There's  a  dead  baby  in  the  bed.  Red  hair.  They 
ought  to  have  taken  it  away,"  she  said.  "Maggie 
had  a  baby  once.  She  took  it  up  the  larie  to  the  place 
where  the  man  is ;  and  they  put  it  behind  the  palings. 
Dirty  blue  palings. 

"...  Pussycat.  Pussycat,  what  did  you  there? 
Pussy.  Prissie.  Prissiecat.  Poor  Prissie.  She 
never  goes  to  bed.  She  can't  get  up  out  of  the 
chair." 


Harriett  Frean  133 

A  figure  in  white,  with  a  stiff  white  cap,  stood 
by  the  bed.  She  named  it,  fixed  it  in  her  mind. 
Nurse.  Nurse — that  was  what  it  was.  She  spoke 
to  it.  "It's  sad — sad  to  go  through  so  much  pain 
and  then  to  have  a  dead  baby." 

The  white  curtain  walls  of  the  cubicle  contracted, 
closed  in  on  her.  She  was  lying  at  the  bottom  of 
her  white-curtained  nursery  cot.  She  felt  weak  and 
diminished,  small,  like  a  very  little  child. 

The  front  curtains  parted,  showing  the  blond  light 
of  the  corridor  beyond.  She  saw  the  nursery  door 
open  and  the  light  from  the  candle  moved  across  the 
ceiling.  The  gap  was  filled  by  the  heavy  form,  the 
obscene  yet  sorrowful  face  of  Connie  Pennefather. 

Harriett  looked  at  it.  She  smiled  with  a  sudden 
ecstatic  wonder  and  recognition. 

"Mamma " 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 

COLLEGE  LIBRARY 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


Book  Slip-35m-7,'63(D8634s4)4280 


UCLA-College  Library 

PR  6037  S611 1922 


•  -•  •!••<  II  II      I  III    III  III 

L  005  755  534  4 


Library 

PR 
6037 
S61    1 

1922 


go™  185  259 


